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rhysdarbinizedarby · 6 months

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Couch surfer in his 30s. Oscar winner in his 40s. Why the whole world wants Taika

**Notes: This is very long post!**

Good Weekend

In his 30s, he was sleeping on couches. By his 40s, he’d directed a Kiwi classic, taken a Marvel movie to billion-dollar success, and won an Oscar. Meet Taika Waititi, king of the oddball – and one of New Zealand’s most original creative exports.

Taika Waititi: “Be a nice person and live a good life. And just don’t be an arsehole.”

The good news? Taika Waititi is still alive. I wasn’t sure. The screen we were speaking through jolted savagely a few minutes ago, with a cacophonous bang and a confused yelp, then radio silence. Now the Kiwi filmmaker is back, grinning like a loon: “I just broke the f---ing table, bro!”

Come again? “I just smashed this f---ing table and glass flew everywhere. It’s one of those old annoying colonial tables. It goes like this – see that?” Waititi says, holding up a folding furniture leg. “I hit the mechanism and it wasn’t locked. Anyway …”

I’m glad he’s fine. The stuff he’s been saying from his London hotel room could incur biblical wrath. We’re talking about his latest project, Next Goal Wins, a movie about the American Samoa soccer team’s quest to score a solitary goal, 10 years after suffering the worst loss in the game’s international history – a 31-0 ignominy to Australia – but our chat strays into spirituality, then faith, then religion.

“I don’t personally believe in a big guy sitting on a cloud judging everyone, but that’s just me,” Waititi says, deadpan. “Because I’m a grown-up.”

This is the way his interview answers often unfold. Waititi addresses your topic – dogma turns good people bad, he says, yet belief itself is worth lauding – but bookends every response with a conspiratorial nudge, wink, joke or poke. “Regardless of whether it’s some guy living on a cloud, or some other deity that you’ve made up – and they’re all made up – the message across the board is the same, and it’s important: Be a nice person, and live a good life. And just don’t be an arsehole!”

Not being an arsehole seems to have served Waititi, 48, well. Once a national treasure and indie darling (through the quirky tenderness of his breakout New Zealand films Boy in 2010 and Hunt for the Wilderpeople in 2016), Waititi then became a star of both the global box office (through his 2017 entry into the Marvel Universe, Thor: Ragnarok, which grossed more than $1.3 billion worldwide) and then the Academy Awards (winning the 2020 best adapted screenplay Oscar for his subversive Holocaust dramedy JoJo Rabbit, in which he played an imaginary Hitler).

Waititi playing Adolf Hitler in the 2019 movie JoJo Rabbit. (Alamy)

A handsome devil with undeniable roguish charm, Waititi also slid seamlessly into style-icon status (attending this year’s Met Gala shirtless, in a floor-length gunmetal-grey Atelier Prabal Gurung wrap coat, with pendulous pearl necklaces), as well as becoming his own brand (releasing an eponymous line of canned coffee drinks) and bona fide Hollywood A-lister (he was introduced to his second wife, British singer Rita Ora, by actor Robert Pattinson at a barbecue).

Putting that platform to use, Waititi is an Indigenous pioneer and mentor, too, co-creating the critically acclaimed TV series Reservation Dogs, while co-founding the Piki Films production company, committed to promoting the next generation of storytellers – a mission that might sound all weighty and worthy, yet Waititi’s new wave of First Nations work is never earnest, always mixing hurt with heart and howling humour.

Waititi with wife Rita Ora at the 2023 Met Gala in May. (Getty Images)

Makes sense. Waititi is a byproduct of “the weirdest coupling ever” – his late Maori father from the Te Whanau-a-Apanui tribe was an artist, farmer and “Satan’s Slaves” bikie gang founder, while his Wellington schoolteacher mum descended from Russian Jews, although he’s not devout about her faith. (“No, I don’t practise,” he confirms. “I’m just good at everything, straight away.”)

He’s remained loyally tethered to his origin story, too – and to a cadre of creative Kiwi mates, including actors Jemaine Clement and Rhys Darby – never forgetting that not long before the actor/writer/producer/director was an industry maven, he was a penniless painter/photographer/ musician/comedian.

With no set title and no fixed address, he’s seemingly happy to be everything, everywhere (to everyone) all at once. “‘The universe’ is bandied around a lot these days, but I do believe in the kind of connective tissue of the universe, and the energy that – scientifically – we are made up of a bunch of atoms that are bouncing around off each other, and some of the atoms are just squished together a bit tighter than others,” he says, smiling. “We’re all made of the same stardust, and that’s pretty special.”

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We’ve caught Waititi in a somewhat relaxed moment, right before the screen actors’ and media artists’ strike ends. He’s sensitive to the struggle but doesn’t deny enjoying the break. “I spent a lot of time thinking about writing, and not writing, and having a nice holiday,” he tells Good Weekend. “Honestly, it was a good chance just to recombobulate.”

Waititi, at right, with Hunt for the Wilderpeople actors, from left, Sam Neill, Rhys Darby and Julian Dennison. (Getty Images)

It’s mid-October, and he’s just headed to Paris to watch his beloved All Blacks in the Rugby World Cup. He’s deeply obsessed with the game, and sport in general. “Humans spend all of our time knowing what’s going to happen with our day. There’s no surprises any more. We’ve become quite stagnant. And I think that’s why people love sport, because of the air of unpredictability,” he says. “It’s the last great arena entertainment.”

The main filmic touchstone for Next Goal Wins (which premieres in Australian cinemas on New Year’s Day) would be Cool Runnings (1993), the unlikely true story of a Jamaican bobsled team, but Waititi also draws from genre classics such as Any Given Sunday and Rocky, sampling trusted tropes like the musical training montage. (His best one is set to Everybody Wants to Rule the World by Tears for Fears.)

Filming in Hawaii was an uplifting experience for the self-described Polynesian Jew. “It wasn’t about death, or people being cruel to each other. Thematically, it was this simple idea, of getting a small win, and winning the game wasn’t even their goal – their goal was to get a goal,” he says. “It was a really sweet backbone.”

Waititi understands this because, growing up, he was as much an athlete as a nerd, fooling around with softball and soccer before discovering rugby league, then union. “There’s something about doing exercise when you don’t know you’re doing exercise,” he enthuses. “It’s all about the fun of throwing a ball around and trying to achieve something together.” (Whenever Waititi is in Auckland he joins his mates in a long-running weekend game of touch rugby. “And then throughout the week I work out every day. Obviously. I mean, look at me.”)

Auckland is where his kids live, too, so he spends as much time there as possible. Waititi met his first wife, producer Chelsea Winstanley, on the set of Boy in 2010, and they had two daughters, Matewa Kiritapu, 8, and his firstborn, Te Kainga O’Te Hinekahu, 11. (The latter is a derivative of his grandmother’s name, but he jokes with American friends that it means “Resurrection of Tupac” or “Mazda RX7″) Waititi and Winstanley split in about 2018, and he married the pop star Ora in 2022.

He offers a novel method for balancing work with parenthood … “Look, you just abandon them, and know that the experience will make them harder individuals later on in life. And it’s their problem,” he says. “I’m going to give them all of the things that they need, and I’m going to leave behind a decent bank account for their therapy, and they will be just like me, and the cycle will continue.”

Jokes aside – I think he’s joking – school holidays are always his, and he brings the girls onto the set of every movie he makes. “They know enough not to get in the way or touch anything that looks like it could kill you, and they know to be respectful and quiet when they need to. But they’re just very comfortable around filmmakers, which I’m really happy about, because eventually I hope they will get into the industry. One more year,” he laughs, “then they can leave school and come work for Dad.”

Theirs is certainly a different childhood than his. Growing up, he was a product of two worlds. His given names, for instance, were based on his appearance at birth: “Taika David” if he looked Maori (after his Maori grandfather) and “David Taika” if he looked Pakeha (after his white grandfather). His parents split when he was five, so he bounced between his dad’s place in Waihau Bay, where he went by the surname Waititi, and his mum, eight hours drive away in Wellington, where he went by Cohen (the last name on his birth certificate and passport).

Waititi was precocious, even charismatic. His mother Robin once told Radio New Zealand that people always wanted to know him, even as an infant: “I’d be on a bus with him, and he was that kind of baby who smiled at people, and next thing you know they’re saying, ‘Can I hold your baby?’ He’s always been a charmer to the public eye.”

He describes himself as a cool, sporty, good-looking nerd, raised on whatever pop culture screened on the two TV channels New Zealand offered in the early 1980s, from M*A*S*H and Taxi to Eddie Murphy and Michael Jackson. He was well-read, too. When punished by his mum, he would likely be forced to analyse a set of William Blake poems.

He puts on a whimpering voice to describe their finances – “We didn’t have much monneeey” – explaining how his mum spent her days in the classroom but also worked in pubs, where he would sit sipping a raspberry lemonade, doodling drawings and writing stories. She took in ironing and cleaned houses; he would help out, learning valuable lessons he imparts to his kids. “And to random people who come to my house,” he says. “I’ll say, ‘Here’s a novel idea, wash this dish,’ but people don’t know how to do anything these days.”

“Every single character I’ve ever written has been based on someone I’ve known or met or a story I’ve stolen from someone.” - Taika Waititi

He loved entertaining others, clearly, but also himself, recording little improvised radio plays on a tape deck – his own offbeat versions of ET and Indiana Jones and Star Wars. “Great free stuff where you don’t have any idea what the story is as you’re doing it,” he says. “You’re just sort of making it up and enjoying the freedom of playing god in this world where you can make people and characters do whatever you want.”

His other sphere of influence lay in Raukokore, the tiny town where his father lived. Although Boy is not autobiographical, it’s deeply personal insofar as it’s filmed in the house where he grew up, and where he lived a life similar to that portrayed in the story, surrounded by his recurring archetypes: warm grandmothers and worldly kids; staunch, stoic mums; and silly, stunted men. “Every single character I’ve ever written has been based on someone I’ve known or met,” he says, “or a story I’ve stolen from someone.”

He grew to love drawing and painting, obsessed early on with reproducing the Sistine Chapel. During a 2011 TED Talk on creativity, Waititi describes his odd subject matter, from swastikas and fawns to a picture of an old lady going for a walk … upon a sword … with Robocop. “My father was an outsider artist, even though he wouldn’t know what that meant,” Waititi told the audience in Doha. “I love the naive. I love people who can see things through an innocent viewpoint. It’s inspiring.”

After winning Best Adapted Screenplay Academy Award for JoJo Rabbit in 2020. (Getty Images)

It was an interesting time in New Zealand, too – a coming-of-age decade in which the Maori were rediscovering their culture. His area was poor, “but only financially,” he says. “It’s very rich in terms of the people and the culture.” He learned kapa haka – the songs, dances and chants performed by competing tribes at cultural events, or to honour people at funerals and graduations – weddings, parties, anything. “Man, any excuse,” he explains. “A big part of doing them is to uplift your spirits.”

Photography was a passion, so I ask what he shot. “Just my penis. I sent them to people, but we didn’t have phones, so I would print them out, post them. One of the first dick pics,” he says. Actually, his lens was trained on regular people. He watches us still – in airports, restaurants. “Other times late at night, from a tree. Whatever it takes to get the story. You know that.”

He went to the Wellington state school Onslow College and did plays like Androcles and the Lion, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Crucible. His crew of arty students eventually ended up on stage at Bats Theatre in the city, where they would perform haphazard comedy shows for years.

“Taika was always rebellious and wild in his comedy, which I loved,” says his high school mate Jackie van Beek, who became a longtime collaborator, including working with Waititi on a Tourism New Zealand campaign this year. “I remember he went through a phase of turning up in bars around town wearing wigs, and you’d try and sit down and have a drink with him but he’d be doing some weird character that would invariably turn up in some show down the track.”

He met more like-minded peers at Victoria University, including Jemaine Clement (who’d later become co-creator of Flight of the Conchords). During a 2019 chat with actor Elijah Wood, Waititi describes he and Clement clocking one another from opposite sides of the library one day: a pair of Maoris experiencing hate at first sight, based on a mutual suspicion of cultural appropriation. (Clement was wearing a traditional tapa cloth Samoan shirt, and Waititi was like: “This motherf---er’s not Samoan.” Meanwhile, Waititi was wearing a Rastafarian beanie, and Clement was like, “This motherf---er’s not Jamaican.”)

With Jemaine Clement in 2014. (Getty Images)

But they eventually bonded over Blackadder and Fawlty Towers, and especially Kenny Everett, and did comedy shows together everywhere from Edinburgh to Melbourne. Waititi was almost itinerant, spending months at a time busking, or living in a commune in Berlin. He acted in a few small films, and then – while playing a stripper on a bad TV show – realised he wanted to try life behind the camera. “I became tired of being told what to do and ordered around,” he told Wellington’s Dominion Post in 2004. “I remember sitting around in the green room in my G-string thinking, ‘Why am I doing this? Just helping someone else to realise their dream.’ ”

He did two strong short films, then directed his first feature – Eagle vs Shark (2007) – when he was 32. He brought his mates along (Clement, starring with Waititi’s then-girlfriend Loren Horsley), setting something of a pattern in his career: hiring friends instead of constantly navigating new working relationships. “If you look at things I’m doing,” he tells me, “there’s always a few common denominators.”

Sam Neill says Waititi is the exemplar of a new New Zealand humour. “The basis of it is this: we’re just a little bit crap at things.”

This gang of collaborators shares a common Kiwi vibe, too, which his longtime friend, actor Rhys Darby, once coined “the comedy of the mundane”. Their new TV show, Our Flag Means Death, for example, leans heavily into the mundanity of pirate life – what happens on those long days at sea when the crew aren’t unsheathing swords from scabbards or burying treasure.

Waititi plays pirate captain Blackbeard, centre, in Our Flag Means Death, with Rhys Darby, left, and Rory Kinnear. (Google Images)

Sam Neill, who first met Waititi when starring in Hunt for the Wilderpeople, says Waititi is the exemplar of a new New Zealand humour. “And I think the basis of it is this,” says Neill. “We’re just a little bit crap at things, and that in itself is funny.” After all, Neill asks, what is What We Do in The Shadows (2014) if not a film (then later a TV show) about a bunch of vampires who are pretty crap at being vampires, living in a pretty crappy house, not quite getting busted by crappy local cops? “New Zealand often gets named as the least corrupt country in the world, and I think it’s just that we would be pretty crap at being corrupt,” Neill says. “We don’t have the capacity for it.”

Waititi’s whimsy also spurns the dominant on-screen oeuvre of his homeland – the so-called “cinema of unease” exemplified by the brutality of Once Were Warriors (1994) and the emotional peril of The Piano (1993). Waititi still explores pathos and pain, but through laughter and weirdness. “Taika feels to me like an antidote to that dark aspect, and a gift somehow,” Neill says. “And I’m grateful for that.”

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Something happened to Taika Waititi when he was about 11 – something he doesn’t go into with Good Weekend, but which he considered a betrayal by the adults in his life. He mentioned it only recently – not the moment itself, but the lesson he learnt: “That you cannot and must not rely on grown-ups to help you – you’re basically in the world alone, and you’re gonna die alone, and you’ve just gotta make it all for yourself,” he told Irish podcast host James Brown. “I basically never forgave people in positions of responsibility.”

What does that mean in his work? First, his finest films tend to reflect the clarity of mind possessed by children, and the unseen worlds they create – fantasies conjured up as a way to understand or overcome. (His mum once summed up the main message of Boy: “The unconditional love you get from your children, and how many of us waste that, and don’t know what we’ve got.”)

Second, he’s suited to movie-making – “Russian roulette with art” – because he’s drawn to disruptive force and chaos. And that in turn produces creative defiance: allowing him to reinvigorate the Marvel Universe by making superheroes fallible, or tell a Holocaust story by making fun of Hitler. “Whenever I have to deal with someone who’s a boss, or in charge, I challenge them,” he told Brown, “and I really do take whatever they say with a pinch of salt.”

It’s no surprise then that Waititi was comfortable leaping from independent films to the vast complexity of Hollywood blockbusters. He loves the challenge of coordinating a thousand interlocking parts, requiring an army of experts in vocations as diverse as construction, sound, art, performance and logistics. “I delegate a lot,” he says, “and share the load with a lot of people.”

“This is a cool concept, being able to afford whatever I want, as opposed to sleeping on couches until I was 35.” - Taika Waititi

But the buck stops with him. Time magazine named Waititi one of its Most Influential 100 People of 2022. “You can tell that a film was made by Taika Waititi the same way you can tell a piece was painted by Picasso,” wrote Sacha Baron Cohen. Compassionate but comic. Satirical but watchable. Rockstar but auteur. “Actually, sorry, but this guy’s really starting to piss me off,” Cohen concluded. “Can someone else write this piece?”

Directing Chris Hemsworth in 2017 in Thor: Ragnarok, which grossed more than $1.3 billion at the box office. (Alamy)

I’m curious to know how he stays grounded amid such adulation. Coming into the game late, he says, helped immensely. After all, Waititi was 40 by the time he left New Zealand to do Thor: Ragnarok. “If you let things go to your head, then it means you’ve struggled to find out who you are,” he says. “But I’ve always felt very comfortable with who I am.” Hollywood access and acclaim – and the pay cheques – don’t erase memories of poverty, either. “It’s more like, ‘Oh, this is a cool concept, being able to afford whatever I want, as opposed to sleeping on couches until I was 35.’ ” Small towns and strong tribes keep him in check, too. “You know you can’t piss around and be a fool, because you’re going to embarrass your family,” he says. “Hasn’t stopped me, though.”

Sam Neill says there was never any doubt Waititi would be able to steer a major movie with energy and imagination. “It’s no accident that the whole world wants Taika,” he says. “But his seductiveness comes with its own dangers. You can spread yourself a bit thin. The temptation will be to do more, more, more. That’ll be interesting to watch.”

Indeed, I find myself vicariously stressed out over the list of potential projects in Waititi’s future. A Roald Dahl animated series for Netflix. An Apple TV show based on the 1981 film Time Bandits. A sequel to What We Do In The Shadows. A reboot of Flash Gordon. A gonzo horror comedy, The Auteur, starring Jude Law. Adapting a cult graphic novel, The Incal, as a feature. A streaming series based on the novel Interior Chinatown. A film based on a Kazuo Ishiguro bestseller. Plus bringing to life the wildly popular Akira comic books. Oh, and for good measure, a new instalment of Star Wars, which he’s already warned the world will be … different.

“It’s going to change things,” he told Good Morning America. “It’s going to change what you guys know and expect.”

Did I say I was stressed for Waititi? I meant physically sick.

“Well…” he qualifies, “some of those things I’m just producing, so I come up with an idea or someone comes to me with an idea, and I shape how ‘it’s this kind of show’ and ‘here’s how we can get it made.’ It’s easier for me to have a part in those things and feel like I’ve had a meaningful role in the creative process, but also not having to do what I’ve always done, which is trying to control everything.”

In the 2014 mockumentary horror film What We Do in the Shadows, which he co-directed with Jemaine Clement. (Alamy)

What about moving away from the niche New Zealand settings he represented so well in his early work? How does he stay connected to his roots? “I think you just need to know where you’re from,” he says, “and just don’t forget that.”

They certainly haven’t forgotten him.

Jasmin McSweeney sits in her office at the New Zealand Film Commission in Wellington, surrounded by promotional posters Waititi signed for her two decades ago, when she was tasked with promoting his nascent talent. Now the organisation’s marketing chief, she talks to me after visiting the heart of thriving “Wellywood”, overseeing the traditional karakia prayer on the set of a new movie starring Geoffrey Rush.

Waititi isn’t the first great Kiwi filmmaker – dual Oscar-winner Jane Campion and blockbuster king Peter Jackson come to mind – yet his particular ascendance, she says, has spurred unparalleled enthusiasm. “Taika gave everyone here confidence. He always says, ‘Don’t sit around waiting for people to say, you can do this.’ Just do it, because he just did it. That’s the Taika effect.”

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Taika David Waititi is known for wearing everything from technicolour dreamcoats to pineapple print rompers, and today he’s wearing a roomy teal and white Isabel Marant jumper. The mohair garment has the same wispy frizz as his hair, which curls like a wave of grey steel wool, and connects with a shorn salty beard.

A stylish silver fox, it wouldn’t surprise anyone if he suddenly announced he was launching a fashion label. He’s definitely a commercial animal, to the point of directing television commercials for Coke and Amazon, along with a fabulous 2023 spot for Belvedere vodka starring Daniel Craig. He also joined forces with a beverage company in Finland (where “taika” means “magic”) to release his coffee drinks. Announcing the partnership on social media, he flagged that he would be doing more of this kind of stuff, too (“Soz not soz”).

Waititi has long been sick of reverent portrayals of Indigenous people talking to spirits.

There’s substance behind the swank. Fashion is a creative outlet but he’s also bought sewing machines in the past with the intention of designing and making clothes, and comes from a family of tailors. “I learnt how to sew a button on when I was very young,” he says. “I learnt how to fix holes or patches in your clothes, and darn things.”

And while he gallivants around the globe watching Wimbledon or modelling for Hermès at New York Fashion Week, all that glamour belies a depth of purpose, particularly when it comes to Indigenous representation.

There’s a moment in his new movie where a Samoan player realises that their Dutch coach, played by Michael Fassbender, is emotionally struggling, and he offers a lament for white people: “They need us.” I can’t help but think Waititi meant something more by that line – maybe that First Nations people have wisdom to offer if others will just listen?

“Weeelllll, a little bit …” he says – but from his intonation, and what he says next, I’m dead wrong. Waititi has long been sick of reverent portrayals of Indigenous people talking to kehua (spirits), or riding a ghost waka (phantom canoe), or playing a flute on a mountain. “Always the boring characters,” he says. “They’ve got no real contemporary relationship with the world, because they’re always living in the past in their spiritual ways.”

A scene from Next Goal Wins, filmed earlier this year. (Alamy)

He’s part of a vanguard consciously poking fun at those stereotypes. Another is the Navajo writer and director Billy Luther, who met Waititi at Sundance Film Festival back in 2003, along with Reservation Dogs co-creator Sterlin Harjo. “We were this group of outsiders trying to make films, when nobody was really biting,” says Luther. “It was a different time. The really cool thing about it now is we’re all working. We persevered. We didn’t give up. We slept on each other’s couches and hung out. It’s like family.”

Waititi has power now, and is known for using Indigenous interns wherever possible (“because there weren’t those opportunities when I was growing up”), making important introductions, offering feedback on scripts, and lending his name to projects through executive producer credits, too, which he did for Luther’s new feature film, Frybread Face and Me (2023).

He called Luther back from the set of Thor: Love and Thunder (2022) to offer advice on working with child actors – “Don’t box them into the characters you’ve created,” he said, “let them naturally figure it out on their own” – but it’s definitely harder to get Waititi on the phone these days. “He’s a little bitch,” Luther says, laughing. “Nah, there’s nothing like him. He’s a genius. You just knew he was going to be something. I just knew it. He’s my brother.“

I’ve been asked to explicitly avoid political questions in this interview, probably because Waititi tends to back so many causes, from child poverty and teenage suicide to a campaign protesting offshore gas and oil exploration near his tribal lands. But it’s hard to ignore his recent Instagram post, sharing a viral video about the Voice to Parliament referendum starring Indigenous Aussie rapper Adam Briggs. After all, we speak only two days after the proposal is defeated. “Yeah, sad to say but, Australia, you really shat the bed on that one,” Waititi says, pausing. “But go see my movie!”

About that movie – the early reviews aren’t great. IndieWire called it a misfire, too wrapped in its quirks to develop its arcs, with Waititi’s directorial voice drowning out his characters, while The Guardian called it “a shoddily made and strikingly unfunny attempt to tell an interesting story in an uninteresting way”. I want to know how he moves past that kind of criticism. “For a start, I never read reviews,” he says, concerned only with the opinion of people who paid for admission, never professional appraisals. “It’s not important to me. I know I’m good at what I do.”

Criticism that Indigenous concepts weren’t sufficiently explained in Next Goal Wins gets his back up a little, though. The film’s protagonist, Jaiyah Saelua, the first transgender football player in a FIFA World Cup qualifying match, is fa’afafine – an American Samoan identifier for someone with fluid genders – but there wasn’t much exposition of this concept in the film. “That’s not my job,” Waititi says. “It’s not a movie where I have to explain every facet of Samoan culture to an audience. Our job is to retain our culture, and present a story that’s inherently Polynesian, and if you don’t like it, you can go and watch any number of those other movies out there, 99 per cent of which are terrible.”

*notes: (there is video clip in the article)

Waititi sounds momentarily cranky, but he’s mostly unflappable and hilarious. He’s the kind of guy who prefers “Correctumundo bro!” to “Yes”. When our video connection is too laggy, he plays up to it by periodically pretending to be frozen, sitting perfectly still, mouth open, his big shifting eyeballs the only giveaway.

He’s at his best on set. Saelua sat next to him in Honolulu while filming the joyous soccer sequences. “He’s so chill. He just let the actors do their thing, giving them creative freedom, barely interjecting unless it was something important. His style matches the vibe of the Pacific people. We’re a very funny people. We like to laugh. He just fit perfectly.”

People do seem to love working alongside him, citing his ability to make productions fresh and unpredictable and funny. Chris Hemsworth once said that Waititi’s favourite gag is to “forget” that his microphone is switched on, so he can go on a pantomime rant for all to hear – usually about his disastrous Australian lead actor – only to “remember” that he’s wired and the whole crew is listening.

“I wouldn’t know about that, because I don’t listen to what other people say about anything – I’ve told you this,” Waititi says. “I just try to have fun when there’s time to have fun. And when you do that, and you bring people together, they’re more willing to go the extra mile for you, and they’re more willing to believe in the thing that you’re trying to do.”

Yes, he plays music between takes, and dances out of his director’s chair, but it’s really all about relaxing amid the immense pressure and intense privilege of making movies. “Do you know how hard it is just to get anything financed or green-lit, then getting a crew, getting producers to put all the pieces together, and then making it to set?” Waititi asks. “It’s a real gift, even to be working, and I feel like I have to remind people of that: enjoy this moment.”

Source: The Age

By: Konrad Marshall (December 1, 2023)

#rhys darby #taika waititi #next goal wins #our flag means death #hunt for the wilderpeople #interview

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all-things-are-nothing-to-me · 3 days

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Nearly as soon as the Bolsheviks took power, they began to execute anarchists and Socialist Revolutionaries, most of whom had fought alongside the Bolsheviks in the Revolution. They also purged elements of their own party deemed "anti-Soviet" or "counter-revolutionary." This state repression was well documented by the Soviet government, but here we have chosen to use journals and letters of those affected. Lithuanian-American Jewish anarchists Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman describe the Bolshevik betrayal: The systematic man-hunt of anarchists [...] with the result that every prison and jail in Soviet Russia filled with our comrades, fully coincided in time and spirit with Lenin's speech at the Tenth Congress of the Russian Communist Party. On that occasion Lenin announced that the most merciless war must be declared against what he termed "the petty bourgeois anarchist elements" which, according to him, are developing even within the Communist Party [...] On the very day that Lenin made the above statement, numbers of anarchists were arrested all over the country, without the least cause or explanation. The conditions of their imprisonment are exceptionally vile and brutal. (Boni, 253)

#anti-bolshevism #anti-leninist #anarchism #anti tankie action #crimethinc #emma goldman #alexander berkman #communism #marxism leninism

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snarkesthour · 1 year

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United By Music Hatred Of The Jury

Eurovision has been dogged by allegations of cheating, corruption, bad judging calls, and hatred of the jury for many years. This year brought that to a head with Sweden’s win over the public favourite Finland, in an allocation of points that shocked Europe.

Sweden received only 243 points from the public vote, without a single “douze points” from any country. Finland received 376 votes from the public, the second highest amount ever, including the coveted 12 points from eighteen different nation-states. How, then, did Sweden manage to win? Finland was only awarded 150 points by the professional jury, while Sweden was given 340, sailing their singer Loreen, a previous Eurovision winner, to victory.

Understandably, people are upset.

One reason that Finns have said it hurt to lose to Sweden is due to their history. Finland was colonised by Sweden for over 600 years, after Sweden annexed them (a long process lasting between the 1150s and 1350s at least). Sweden is still seen as superior in a number of ways. The Finnish language is often considered weird and ugly. Käärijä, the singer representing Finland, went to Eurovision to prove that a song sung in Finnish could win.

The professional jury clearly shows bias against songs sung in native and minority languages and not English. Time and time again, they vote for the most generic pop songs instead of performances laced with languages and culture from the performing countries. Last year in 2022, France sent a song in Breton, a language with a long history of oppression in France, with Celtic iconography. They received only 9 points from the jury. Meanwhile, audiences enjoyed the performance, and were happy that France finally sent something other than a modern chanson song, French audiences included. Keiino included aspects of Sami culture and language in their song in 2019, and lost out to the Netherlands, falling several places due to the jury vote. The Eurovision Song Contest exists to showcase and celebrate the full cultural richness of the competing countries, and it is wholly wrong for the jury to penalise that.

This argument is unhelped by those that often complain about the amount of Anglophone pop songs, yet then vote for the same due to loyalty, or the attractiveness of the singer, or politics. There is nothing wrong with voting for an English language pop song if you think it is the best song that year, but one way to help these non-English language songs is to allocate them a smaller amount of votes and save the rest for your favourite. This way these countries know that other people did enjoy their performances, and that they would like to see more of the same.

During its occupation by Sweden, Swedish became the dominant language in Finland, spoken by the upper class, administration, and education. It was only under Russian rule that the Finnish language started to gain traction and recognition, finally achieving equal status as Swedish legally in 1892. This is part of why it was so important to Finns to have a winning song sung in Finnish, their only previous win being in English. To show that their language is not rough and ugly sounding, and to demonstrate what it means to sing in your native language. The crowd sang along to Käärijä’s performance in Finnish; people who are not Finnish and have never spoken a word of Finnish. I cannot imagine that feeling. Käärijä also performed topless, with a perfectly normal body, unlike the heavily chiselled bodies favoured by Hollywood, which are, only produced by extreme diets, workout regimes, and dangerous levels of dehydration. It is no surprise he became a national treasure. Finland redecorated statues and had green shrines in their libraries and supermarkets. The country was so excited. Then they lost to Sweden over the jury vote.

Norway got the third highest votes this year from the public. They also won the televoting in 2019 too, but lost because of the professional jury votes that propelled Netherlands to the win. It was said that Norway may have had some voice trouble during the finals week, including her jury performance. The BBC praised her jury performance, but Swedish newspapers allegedly said it was very rough, and that she missed nearly every note.

The professional jury doesn’t judge the same Grand Final performance that everyone else sees. The jury judges the final jury performance, a separate show where the public is not allowed and only press accredited people can attend. Performers will obviously give it their best, but that does not guarantee it will be their best performance. It is also reasonable to assume that some singers might have a lower energy performance during the jury performance due to exhaustion, or in order to save up for the grand final, among other possibilities.

It is clear that everyone needs to be voting on the same show – anything else is just blatantly unfair. Votes cannot be accurately distributed if people are voting on two different shows.

If the juries are unbiased, we have a huge problem. Even if Finland got 12 points from everyone voting in the grand final, they would have only scraped a win with 11 points. They scored the second highest votes in Eurovision history, second only to Ukraine last year, a win that itself was mired in allegations of cheating and corruption. And yet Finland still lost.

The weighting of the votes is undoubtedly tilted towards the jury. As mentioned earlier, Finland received the second highest amount of televotes in Eurovision history, and won the public vote, yet lost to Sweden based on the professional jury. This is a kick in the face to members of the public that watched and voted. It sends a clear message that the public and their opinion clearly does not matter at all and they might as well have not voted. The public pay for Eurovision, the public stream and download and buy the songs, and as such, the publics vote should count, otherwise why bother? Why have a competition?

As it stands right now, the Eurovision Song Contest is essentially voted on like a US Presidential Election. The professional jury vote is essentially the Electoral College, capable of snatching the victory from the clear public winner that secured the majority of public votes. If we are going to complain about this system being used for American elections, then there is no reason that it should be acceptable here.

One way to fix this is to change the weighting of the jury versus public votes. The professional jury was established to prevent nations from simply voting for their neighbours or allies, yet it is remarkable how often the professional juries’ votes reflect these politics anyway. A 30/70 split to the public votes will allow the jury to make clear who they think should win while also not holding enough sway to alter the public results.

An overhaul also needs to be made to the professional jury itself. It is no secret that corruption is present within Eurovision. Keeping the names of the jury secret to prevent this from happening is only going to make it impossible to know when it has happened. Instead, the jury list should be transparent, and the juries themselves should be diverse, with a number of musical styles represented. Eurovision has a wide range of musical styles perform, and having a jury compiled of industry professionals from only one or two genres will only harm these entries, especially those that draw on traditional music styles. Many fan favourites were cheated by the voting system because their songs and performances weren’t “normal” or “palatable” enough for the jury. As mentioned earlier, these trend towards songs that have considerable influence from the culture of the country, including native and minority languages. It was also caused by the “war” between the juries, as evidenced by the graphic put out by Eurovision showing the difference between the jury favourites and the public favourites. Sweden and Finland sat in the middle of each half, essentially causing a fight over who would win by each half voting only for that one country.

Worldwide voting should also be removed. There should be a return to form when it comes to who can vote, as it was last year. Those that did not pay for Eurovision should not be able to vote, and worldwide politics could tip a win or loss by a considerable amount. The US has a population of almost 332 million people. India has a population of 1.408 billion. Imagine if any country with a population like this had even a fraction of its people cast a vote based on socio-political reasons.

Even within the voting process itself, there are problems. Votes should cost the equivalent amount everywhere. It ranges from 15p/17ct up to over a euro to vote, depending on where you are. This is going to have an impact on who can vote, and therefore who will win. Even on the app, it costs money to vote. This will not be a fair competition until everyone can vote equally and the organisers need to get on top of this rapidly.

Equality is the basis of every democratic vote, but Eurovision does not treat all of its competitors equally. The Eurovision Song Contest explicitly acknowledged the war in Ukraine and the need for another nation to host because of it. They sanctioned Russia by banning them from entering, this year being the second year in a row after their initial ban last year. This is considered the right thing to do, but it has raised several questions. The Eurovision Song Contest declined to let Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy address the audience at the grand final, saying that it would politicise the event, ignoring the fact that they had already politicised it by acknowledging the very real events happening in the world that caused something as drastic as a change of host nation. They also politicised it by denying Russia entry. The politics are even implied in the theme. While seen as the correct thing to do, it means they have, to an extent, been hypocritical. They have then taken it one step further though, with the inclusion of Israel.

Israel’s participation has long been debated due to geographical location and politics. However, to ban Russia for the invasion and war against Ukraine while allowing Israel to compete is hypocrisy at its finest. Israel has carried out the same actions against Palestine as Russia has against Ukraine, yet they have not been banned. Instead, they have hosted in recent years, often receive a decent amount of points, and this year had a previous winner featured during the interval act. Many people with the job of awarding points made statements in support of “peace and unity!” only to immediately award points to Israel.

This disparity of treatment is most obvious at two previous competitions. Israel hosted in 2019 when the Icelandic group Hatari famously waved Palestinian flags during the grand final, causing them to be deported and banned from the country. They were later fined for breaking the no politics rule.

In 2021, the Israeli entry was a song called ‘Set Me Free’, a song title that was mocked and by many for its irony. The day before the grand final, Israel launched a missile strike against Palestine (reminiscent of the harrowing news that the hometown of the Ukrainian entry was bombed moments before they took to the stage this year simply from the other perspective) as part of a series of escalations that included threatening to evict Palestinian families from East Jerusalem and nightly clashes between Palestinians and the police during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Many people felt that it was wrong for the performance to go ahead. For a considerable time, YouTube searches for Israel’s grand final performance only returned results for the semi-final.

Despite all this, Israel faced no sanctions at Eurovision. Contrasted with Russia, who has faced sanctions for their actions in Ukraine, fans are understandably angry and upset with Eurovision’s lack of consistent positioning on this issue, calling for the end of the hypocrisy. The double standard shown here, in the disparity of Eurovision’s treatment of Russia and Israel, is a symptom of racialised Eurocentrism – something which remains a massive problem in Europe and a subject which deserves its own post.

Speaking of the war, the UK did not utilise enough Ukrainian talent, or songs. The UK hosted on behalf of Ukraine, yet little of Ukraine was represented. Previous performers Verka, Go_A, and Jamala (who herself faced controversy for her entry at the time, it being an allegory to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in the same year as the title under the excuse of “allying with Nazis”) returned to sing their Eurovision entries, and last year’s winners Kalush Orchestra returned with an extended opening sequence. Beyond this, and one Ukrainian presenter, Ukrainian representation was far below what it should have been. Other Ukrainian groups or previous entries should have been invited to perform, and the three previous groups that performed should have had the option to sing additional songs if they wanted to. This was a serious let-down by the UK, especially given the interval performance. Famous songs of Ukraine could have been sung instead, or even some of those Liverpudlian songs translated into Ukrainian and sung by Ukrainian performers.

Moving on from those who didn’t perform to those who did: Loreen, too, is facing accusations of rudeness and arrogance. She has already won Eurovision once before and has returned to try and win again. The popular opinion is that those who have won Eurovision before should be allowed to return and perform as part of interval acts, but should not be allowed to enter again. It is unfair to the other contestants; they have already had their moment, and should move on to allow the new competitors a fair chance under the spotlight.

Viewers noticed that it was strange that the hosts kept mentioning Abba, and that a member of Abba even made a recorded appearance. Eurovision has nothing to do with Abba’s 50th anniversary next year. Abba won Eurovision for Sweden in 1974 when the UK hosted on behalf of Luxembourg. Now, 50 years later, Sweden wins Eurovision again, in the UK hosted on behalf of Ukraine, just in time for Abba’s big anniversary. No-one can deny that this coincidence seems suspicious, especially considering the jury versus public votes Sweden received and the landslide amount of votes won by Finland.

And that brings us to the plagiarism. Many fans say Loreen’s song this year, “Tattoo” is very similar to her previous winner ‘Euphoria’. An even more common accusation is that her song is very similar, or even identical to ‘Flying Free’ by Pont Aeri. Indeed, the openings are almost a complete match. It seems hard to believe that she could compose an identical opening without having heard the original at all. Sections of the instrumentals are also similar to Loreen’s entry.

Having not heard about this controversy before the grand final, the comparison this blog draws is with Abba’s ‘Winner Takes It All’. Perhaps this is why Sweden scored so many points from the jury this year? After all, Abba constructs very enjoyable, musically excellent songs. This was only noticed when my own father heard Sweden’s entry and began singing along with Abba’s lyrics, only realising that something was different when his lyrics didn’t match Loreen’s. He has been a fan of Abba since they won Eurovision and owns several records and CDs. And even he thought it was a dance remix of Abba.

During the judging section of the competition where the points are awarded, the crowd kept booing, and chanting Käärijä’s name and “cha cha cha” while the hosts were trying to announce Sweden’s victory. This chanting continued during Loreen’s victory song, as well as many other competitors immediately making their way to Käärijä to chant and support him. It was very clear who people thought the winner should be, and it was not Loreen.

No-one remembers who won the year Verka performed. They remember Verka. That’s what’s going to happen this year. This won’t be remembered as the year Loreen won Eurovision for the second time. This will be remembered as the year the juries finally went too far, and the year Finland was robbed.

Next year we should all just send our previous winners. And maybe question if Israel has a place in this competition anymore.

#eurovision #eurovision 2023 #esc 2023 #finland #sweden #uk #russia in eurovision #ukraine in eurovision #israel in eurovision #finnish people if we got anything wrong please let us know

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nordickies · 4 months

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Sorry if this is a stupid question, but could you tell us more about Åland? 😅 What even is it? Is it a country, a state/province, or something else? (sorry, I have never heard of it before joining the Hetalia fandom)

I love your art, and I would love to see more of your OCs in the future!😊

Hello, anon! Don't worry, that's not a stupid question at all! I'm willing to bet most people are in the same situation as you, so I'd love to help out.

Åland Islands are an autonomous and demilitarised region of Finland. This self-governing region is made up of over 6,700 islands; only of which 65 are inhabited. In addition, there are around 20,000 smaller islands and skerries! The biggest island on the archipelago, and where 90% of the population lives, is Fasta Åland; which is only 45 km long and 55 km wide. The Åland Islands are connected to mainland Finland via the Finnish archipelago and its island clusters. But Åland's easternmost point is only 40 km away from mainland Sweden. The capital, Mariehamn, is located at an almost exact midpoint between Turku and Stockholm.

Up until the 19th century, roads were sparse, in bad shape, and thus practically useless in Nordic countries. The fastest way to transport resources, people, and information was by waterways. Thus, Åland acted as a vital connection between Sweden and Finland, especially when those two countries used to be one massive kingdom. Over the centuries, the islands developed a unique identity, shaped by the isolating harsh nature and influences from both the West and East.

Even though Åland is part of Finland, its only officially recognized language is Swedish. Since 1921, The Åland islands have had special privileges provided by the hembygdsrätt, which roughly translates to "home regional right." Simply put, a person is required to obtain this right before it's possible for them to own property on the island, vote in the local elections, or run a business - having Finnish citizenship is not enough. These rights were created to protect Ålandic identity during a time when Sweden and Finland fought over who the islands should belong to.

To be granted hembygdsrätt, certain conditions must be met; you must have Finnish citizenship, have satisfactory Swedish language skills, be registered in the ��land islands, and have lived in Åland for at least 5 years. Alternatively, if one of the parents has this right, it is also inherited by their child. However, you can also lose hembygdsrätt if you lose Finnish citizenship or live outside of Åland for more than 5 years.

Due to its location in the middle of the Baltic Sea, Åland has always been critical, and powers in the area have wanted to control it; it has been occupied by Swedes, Finns, Danes, Germans, Russians, French, and the English. This geopolitical importance is a reason why the islands have been demilitarized since the 1850s after the events of the Crimean War. Also, while Finland is a military conscription country, Ålandic men (with hembygdsrätt) are exempted from this duty.

Åland is not a sovereign country, but it has self-governing rights and its own government. Åland joined the Nordic Council in 1970 and has two representatives in it. Åland also held a separate referendum, and in 1995, it joined the EU at the same time with Sweden and Finland. Åland has a special status in the European Union, as it's considered a "third territory," meaning it's not part of the EU's value-added tax (VAT) or excise duty area.

Ålanders have a strong and separate national identity, even though they have a Finnish passport and speak Swedish as their native language. However, the separatist movement barely exists nowadays, and Ålanders generally don't see a reason to change the status quo. All the granted special laws and privileges by Finnish and international law are perhaps more helpful and prospering to this tiny island than seeking full independence.

As of December 2019, in a survey conducted by Åland Gallup, 78% of island residents supported Åland continuing to be a self-governing region of Finland. It has been a trend in gallups for decades at this point. Being part of Sweden was the least popular option, only getting 4% support, and becoming a fully integrated part of Finland got 5% of the support. 9% of respondents would support the full independence of Åland. In a survey by the Statistics and Research Institute of Åland (ÅSUB, 2008), 90% of the respondents stated that they were Ålandic and 60% felt that they were "completely Ålandic." On the other hand, only a quarter of the respondents considered themselves "completely Finnish," and one-fifth considered themselves "Swedish at some level." The option "European" was more popular than "Finnish," "Swedish," or "Finnish-Swedish". In the ÅSUB 2018 survey, most responders also felt a higher sense of belonging to "Nordic countries" than they did to "Finland" or "Sweden." Another interesting statistic: In Åland Gallup's May 2019 survey, 80.4% of Åland's residents said they would support Finland, and 19.6% said they'd support Sweden if Finland and Sweden were facing each other in an ice hockey match.

I could go on about the Ålandic history and what makes its identity unique, but let this be a quick introduction to this place! Feel free to ask more if you're interested. I could have simply answered it's not a country, but I think that would leave out a lot of important context. Maybe this also explains why I think Åland should have a separate personification from Finland. I hope this helps even a little bit!

#hws åland #culture/history stuff #oc talk

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zvaigzdelasas · 3 months

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The ȘOR Party [...] was a populist political party in Moldova.[13] Known from its foundation in 1998 until October 2016 as the Socio-Political Movement "Equality"[...],[14][15] the party held Eurosceptic and Russophilic stances.[16]

The party was closed down in 2023 having been declared unconstitutional.

The party was founded in 1998 by Moldovan politician Valerii Klimenco as the "Socio-Political Movement "Equality".[17][...]

In 2015, the party decided to nominate Ilan Shor for Mayor of the town of Orhei. [...] In October 2016, Shor was elected president of the party, which was renamed Șor Party. In June 2017, the party President, Ilan Shor was sentenced to 7.5 years in jail for fraud. He broke house arrest and fled the country in 2019 whilst appealing the sentence.[20] On 1 December 2018, the party joined the Alliance of Conservatives and Reformists in Europe.[21][...]

The party organized a Victory Day parade in Chișinău on 9 May 2019.[27][...]

The Șor Party was the main instigator of the 2022–2023 Moldovan protests.[28][...]

On 8 November 2022, the Moldovan government requested the constitutional court to initiate proceedings for the outlawing of the party in Moldova, due to it allegedly promoting the interests of a foreign state (Russia) and harming the independence and sovereignty of the country.[29][30]

On 13 April 2023, the appeal court doubled the sentence of party President Ilan Shor in a case linked to the theft of $1 billion in bank assets as well as money laundering, breach of trust, and fraud to 15 years in prison in absentia and froze his assets. Shor was living in Israel at the time of the court ruling after having fled Moldova in 2019.[31][...]

On 19 June 2023, the Șor Party was declared unconstitutional by the Constitutional Court of Moldova.[35][36][37] [...]

On 31 July, the Moldovan parliament voted in favour of banning the leaders of the dissolved Șor Party – including Ilan Shor – from standing in elections for a period of five years.[41] In October the Constitutional Court of Moldova ruled that Article 16 of the Electoral Code is unconstitutional and that former members of the Șor Party can stand for elections.[42][...]

The Party's 2019 programme introduced the following points:[46]

○ Free universal health care.

○ Free education including higher education. Increasing the size and scope of disability benefits, maternity benefits and retirement pensions.

○ The creation of modernised collective farms to work alongside the private sector. Active state intervention in the spheres of infrastructure, transport, energy, communications, housing, pharmaceuticals, etc.

○ The nationalization of foreign-owned energy companies.

○ A commitment to law and order including both reinstating the death penalty for particularly dangerous criminals and addressing the underlying socioeconomic issues that may cause crime.

○ A commitment to Moldovan independence and military neutrality.

The opening paragraphs of the party's 2008 election programme stated that it viewed the average person's quality of life as superior under the Soviet Union when compared to modern times. It further stated that it viewed Moldova's alleged socio-economic problems as relating to Moldova's negative relationship with the Russian Federation.[47]

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figureskatingcostumes · 3 months

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Sofia Leontieva and Daniil Gorelkin skating their rhythm dance at the 2020 Junior Russian Nationals.

(Sources: 1 and 2)

#Sofia Leontieva #Daniil Gorelkin #Leontieva Gorelkin #Russia #Ice dance #Figure skating #Musicals Operetta Broadway #Tea Time Foxtrot #2020 Junior Russian Nationals #2019–2020

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comradesaucegay · 2 months

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i had a friend who loves talking politics and when they were blindly worshipping ukraines military i tried to tell them about ukraines militarys white supremacy they got worked up and indirectly accused me of 'siding with russia'. then behind my back they went to a mutual friend saying that russians are spreading propaganda about ukrainians being white supremacists. just recently they came up to me saying that right wingers in the us are siding with russia and putin against ukraine. feels like im going crazy

i'm sorry about your friend. idk if it's worth trying to argue with them, but if they approach you about this again...

BBC, 2014: Ukraine underplays role of far right in conflict

Human Rights Watch, 2014: Ukraine: Unguided Rockets Killing Civilians

Truthout, 2015: The Ukraine Mess That Nuland Made

The Hill, 2017: The reality of neo-Nazis in Ukraine is far from Kremlin propaganda

The Guardian, 2017: 'I want to bring up a warrior': Ukraine's far-right children's camp – video

WaPo, 2018: The war in Ukraine is more devastating than you know

Reuters, 2018: Ukraine’s neo-Nazi problem

The Nation, 2019: Neo-Nazis and the Far Right Are On the March in Ukraine

#also like yeah... it really does make you feel like you're insane especially if you're european

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antifainternational · 2 years

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What can you tell me about the fascist groups in Ukraine?

So when talking about fascist groups in Ukraine, we have to talk about pre-2022 and now. Pre-2022 there were dozens of fascist groups operating in Ukraine, much like Russia, other European countries, and places like the United States. Groups with names like "Centuria," "Tradition and Order," "Wotanjugend," and "National Militia" patrolled the streets, intimidating and attacking immigrants, LGBTQ+ people and leftists/anti-fascists, just as they do in Russia, Hungary, the U.S., and many other countries besides. Our violent hate crimes research project documented attacks by fascist groups in Ukraine in 2020 and 2021, including the kidnapping and torture of a trans woman in April 2020; a coordinated attack on the Pride march in Odessa that same year; and three more attacks on LGBTQ+ people in Kyiv and Odessa in 2021. Of course, the most notorious of these groups is the neo-nazi Azov Battalion. We might not have this exactly right but we believe Azov rose to prominence along with Right Sector during Euromaidan in 2013 and 2014. Because the rebellion against the former dictator Yanukovich was successful and left a temporary power vacuum, Right Sector and Azov took advantage of it to the extent that they could. For Azov, this meant integration into Ukraine's military. That said, the gains made by the far right into the institutions of power in Ukraine were limited and for most, somewhat short-lived. This is reflected by the terrible showing of far-right/fascist groups in elections; by the 2020 raid on a Wotanjugend weapons/explosive cache by the Ukrainian secret service; and of course the election of Ukraine's first-ever Jewish president in 2019. Also, if we've given you the impression that Ukraine was and continues to be a haven for fascist thugs, we strongly recommend watching these interviews with Ukrainian anarchists from April. Now, a lot of people (including Putin) have attempted to use Azov's integration into the Ukrainian military as evidence that Ukraine is run by nazis, but when you consider that Azov at its peak would have accounted for just 1% of the Ukrainian military it becomes clear that the problem is no greater than most militaries, particularly in eastern Europe. Russia, in particular, is in no position to point fingers.

This brings us to the current situation in Ukraine, which is this: there is a powerful fascist group that is committing the lion's share of violence and is actually in control of large parts of the country. That fascist group is the Russian military. The Russian invasion of Ukraine is fascist in nature. It's not unreasonable to make comparisons to Hitler's policy of lebensraum here; Russian is committing acts of genocide against the Ukrainian people; and the OHCHR has, as of last month, documented over 11,000 Ukrainian civilian casualties. Meanwhile in Russia, it is illegal to say anything critical about the war or even to call it a war. All of which is to say this: if you're concerned about fascists in Ukraine, Anon, then most of your concern should be about the most violent fascists there - the Russian military. There are lots of anti-fascist, anarchist, and leftist groups - many of whom fought against fascists in Ukraine before the war - who are now armed and fighting against the Russian invasion. Those are the people who deserve your support and those are the people we've been supporting through things like our t-shirt fundraiser & Yellow Peril Tactical's patches/stickers fundraiser. Check out Rev Dia, Hoods Hoods Klan, Kharkiv Hardcore, Good Night Imperial Pride - all of which are good examples of leftist groups fighting the fascists right now.

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mariacallous · 24 days

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The need for good intelligence has never been more visible. The failure of the Israeli security services to anticipate the brutal surprise attack carried out by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023 reveals what happens when intelligence goes wrong.

In contrast, in late February 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s planned three-day “special military operation” to invade Ukraine and topple the government was pushed onto the back foot by the U.S. and U.K. intelligence communities. While Putin’s rapid seizure of Crimea by a flood of “little green men” in 2014 was a fait accompli, by the time of the 2022 invasion, anticipatory moves including the public declassification of sensitive intelligence ensured that both the intelligence community and Ukraine remained a step ahead of Putin’s plans.

Yet, despite the clear and enduring need for good intelligence to support effective statecraft, national security, and military operations, U.S. intelligence agencies and practitioners are undermined by a crisis of legitimacy. Recent research investigating public attitudes toward the U.S. intelligence community offers some sobering trends.

A May 2023 poll conducted by the Harvard University Center for American Political Studies and Harris Poll found that an eye-watering 70 percent of Americans surveyed were either “very” or “somewhat” concerned about “interference by the FBI and intelligence agencies in a future presidential election.”

A separate study, conducted in 2021 and 2022 by the Intelligence Studies Project at the University of Texas at Austin and the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, found that only 56 percent of Americans thought that the intelligence community “plays a vital role in warning against foreign threats and contributes to our national security.” That number is down 10 points from a previous high—if it can even be called that—of 66 percent in 2019, and the downward trend does not give us cause for optimism. Reframed, that statistic means that in 2022, an alarming (in our view) 44 percent of Americans did not believe that the intelligence community keeps them safe from foreign threats or contributes to U.S. national security.

Worse, despite abundant examples of authoritarian aggression and worldwide terror attacks, nearly 1 in 5 Americans seem to be confused about where the real threats to their liberty are actually emanating from. According to the UT Austin study, a growing number of Americans thought that the intelligence community represented a threat to civil liberties: 17 percent in 2022, up from 12 percent in 2021. A nontrivial percentage of Americans feel that the intelligence community is an insidious threat instead of a valuable protector in a dangerous world—a perspective that jeopardizes the security and prosperity of the United States and its allies.

The most obvious recent example of the repercussions of the corrosion of trust in the intelligence community is the recent drama over reauthorizing Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). First introduced in the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, Section 702 is an important legal authority for the U.S. intelligence community to conduct targeted surveillance of foreign persons located outside the United States, with the compelled assistance of electronic communication service providers. According to a report published by Office of the U.S. Director of National Intelligence (DNI), 702 is “extremely valuable” and “provides intelligence on activities of terrorist organizations, weapons proliferators, spies, malicious cyber actors, and other foreign adversaries.”

Section 702 was scheduled to “sunset” at the end of 2023 if not reauthorized. Yet Congress failed to reauthorize 702 by the end of 2023, electing to punt the decision—as is so often the case—to this spring, when it was finally reauthorized (with some important reforms) in late April 2024, but it was only extended for two years instead of the customary five. An unusual alliance of the far right and the far left squeezed centrists and the Biden administration, which was strongly pushing for a renewal that would protect the civil liberties of U.S. citizens and not needlessly hobble the intelligence community in protecting the United States itself.

But the frantic down-to-the-wire negotiations about reauthorizing some recognizable form of 702 obscured a deeper problem at the heart of the contemporary Americans’ relationship with intelligence that has been brewing over the last decade: The fundamental legitimacy of a strong intelligence community—and the integrity of its practitioners—has been questioned by U.S. lawmakers on the far left and the far right, perhaps reflecting a misguided but increasing consensus of tens of millions of Americans.

This trend is now a crisis.

Section 702’s troubled journey faced queries from the privacy-oriented left, where those with overblown concerns about potential abuse by the intelligence community viewed reauthorizing 702 is tantamount to “turning cable installers into spies,” in the words of one opinion contributor published in The Hill. The intelligence community’s revised authorities (some adjustments were required given the 15 years of communications technology development since the amendment was first passed) were called “terrifying” and predictably—the most hackneyed description for intelligence tools—“Orwellian.” On the power-skeptical right, Section 702 is perceived as but another powerful surveillance tool of the so-called deep state.

In response to legitimate concerns about past mistakes, the intelligence community has adopted procedural reforms and enhanced training that it says would account for the overwhelming majority of the (self-reported) mistakes in querying 702 collection. According to a report from the Justice Department’s National Security Division, the FBI achieved a 98 percent compliance rate in 2023 after receiving better training. Further, the Justice Department and the DNI have gone to unprecedented lengths to publicly show—through declassified success stories—the real dangers that allowing 702 to lapse would bring to the United States and its allies.

Never before has an intelligence community begged, cajoled, and pleaded with lawmakers to enable it to do its job. After all, a hobbled intelligence community would still be held responsible should a war warning be missed, or should a terrorist attack occur.

For instance, Gen. Eric Vidaud, the French military intelligence chief, was promptly fired over intelligence failings related to Putin’s (re)invasion of Ukraine despite the Elysée’s criticisms of the warnings made by the United States and United Kingdom as “alarmist.” And Maj. Gen. Aharon Haliva, director of Israeli military intelligence, recently resigned over the Oct. 7 attacks despite the fault probably lying across Israel’s political landscape as well. Intelligence professionals pay more than their share of the bill when their crystal ball stays cloudy.

The hullabaloo over 702 is not the only recent instance painting the actions of the U.S. national security apparatus as questionable state activity conducted by dishonest bureaucrats, and some recent history helps put the recent events into a broader downward trend in trust.

In 2013, National Security Agency (NSA) mass-leaker Edward Snowden, a junior network IT specialist with a Walter Mitty complex, sparked a needed but distorted global conversation about the legitimacy of intelligence collection when he stole more than 1.5 million NSA documents and fled to China and ultimately Russia. The mischaracterization of NSA programs conveyed by Snowden and his allies (painting them as more intrusive and less subject to legal scrutiny than they were) led to popular misunderstandings about the intelligence community’s methods and oversight.

It was not only junior leakers whose unfounded criticism helped to corrode public faith in intelligence; it has also been a bipartisan political effort. In 2009, then-U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi claimed that the CIA had lied to her after she wished to distance herself from the agency’s “enhanced interrogation techniques”—which critics call torture. But Pelosi’s comments earned a “false” rating from Politifact’s “truth-o-meter.” Then-CIA Director Leon Panetta countered that “CIA officers briefed truthfully.”

Some suspicion of a powerful intelligence community stems from genuine failings of the past, especially the CIA’s activities in the early and middle stages of the Cold War, which included some distasteful assassination plots, the illegal collection of intelligence domestically (such as surveillance of Americans on political grounds, including illegally opening their mail), and the LSD experimentation on unwitting Americans as part of its infamous MKULTRA program.

Most of these excesses—characterized as the CIA’s “Family Jewels”—were reported to Congress, which held explosive hearings in 1975 to publicize these activities, bringing the intelligence agencies into the public realm like never before. Images of Sen. Frank Church holding aloft a poison dart gun, designed by the CIA to incapacitate and induce a heart attack in foreign leaders, became front page news. These serious failings in accountability were the dawn of rigorous intelligence oversight.

Public trust in government was already sinking when, in 1971, the Pentagon Papers revealed that politicians had lied about US activities in the deeply unpopular Vietnam war. The Watergate scandal the following year added fuel to fire. Although the CIA was not directly involved in Watergate, the involvement of former agency employees led to a wider belief that the agency was tainted. And in the late 1970s, CIA morale sank to an all-time low when then-President Jimmy Carter began the process of sharply reducing its staff, attributing the decision to its “shocking” activities.

In response to congressional findings and mountains of bad press, subsequent directors of the CIA considered the criticisms and made numerous changes to how the intelligence community operates. While the intelligence community (and its leaders) made good-faith efforts to operate strictly within its legal boundaries, be more responsive to congressional oversight, and embrace some level of transparency, the public image of the CIA and the broader intelligence community didn’t change. After the Cold War ended, the preeminent vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, called twice for the disbanding of the CIA. Such political pummeling of the role of intelligence and the integrity of its practitioners was bound to leave a mark.

The politics of distrust are back to the bad old days. By 2016, distrust of the intelligence community had returned with a vengeance: then-presidential candidate Donald Trump claimed that NSA was circumventing domestic legal constructs to spy on his campaign through its close partnership with the Government Communications headquarters (GCHQ), the British signals intelligence agency. (The NSA said those claims were false and GCHQ called them “utterly ridiculous”.) As president-elect, Trump also compared U.S. intelligence to “living in Nazi Germany.” Once Trump entered the Oval Office, the FBI was a frequent target for his invective thanks to the investigation into possible Russian interference in the 2016 election.

While the intelligence community is a long way away from the excesses of the 1970s, it is not perfect. Intelligence is an art, not a science. It is not prediction so much as narrowing the cone of uncertainty for decision-makers to act in a complex world. Even when acting strictly within the law and under the scrutiny of Congress and multiple inspectors general, the intelligence community has been wrong on several important occasions. It failed to stop the 9/11 attacks, got the assessment that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction spectacularly wrong, and was made to look impotent by Osama bin Laden for nearly a decade before the U.S. Navy SEALs caught up with him on a CIA mission in Pakistan in May 2011.

Errors still happen because intelligence is hard, and the occasional failure to warn, to stop every attack, or to prevent every incorrect search query is inevitable. Today, mistakes are self-reported to Congress; they are no longer hidden away as they sometimes were in the past. Yet the intelligence community has done a poor job telling its own story and self-censors due to widespread over-classification—a problem that the DNI has acknowledged, if not yet remedied. It has only belatedly begun to embrace the transparency required for a modern intelligence apparatus in a democratic state, and there is much work yet to be done.

It is the job of the intelligence agencies to keep a calm and measured eye on dark developments. In a world in which the panoply of threats is increasing, the role of the intelligence community and its responsibilities within democratic states has never been greater. If the community cannot be trusted by its political masters in the White House and Congress, much less the American people, then it will not be given the ability to “play to the edge,” and the risk is that the United States and its allies will be blind to the threats facing them. Given the adversaries, the consequences could be severe.

U.S. intelligence has had a rebirth of confidence since 9/11 and the incorrect judgments of the Iraqi weapons program. It was intelligence and special operations that hunted and killed bin Laden, U.S. law enforcement that has kept the U.S. homeland safe from another massive terror attack, and the intelligence community correctly predicted the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

That increased sense of purpose and morale is moot if the U.S. people, Congress, or the president (sitting or future) do not trust them. This crisis of legitimacy is a trend that may soon hamper the intelligence community, and the results could be unthinkable. Getting the balance between civil liberties and security right isn’t an easy task, but the intelligence community must have the tools, trust, and oversight required to simultaneously keep faith with the American people while serving as their first line of defense.

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skzkiyoon · 1 month

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｡･ﾟﾟ･ BASIC INFORMATION .・゜゜・

BIRTH NAME: kiyona diaz

KOREAN NAME: choi kiyoon (최기윤)

NICKNAMES: yaya, key, kooka, amor, ladybug, key lime, kimchi

BIRTH DATE: november 5, 1996

ZODIAC: scorpio

CHINESE ZODIAC SIGN: rat

BIRTH PLACE: bayamon, puerto rico

NATIONALITY: puerto rican

ETNICITY: korean

FAMILY: 1 sister (21), 2 brothers (18 and 21), father

LANGUAGES: spanish (native), korean (native), english (fluent), japanese (conversational), russian (conversational)

｡･ﾟﾟ･ PHYSICAL .・゜゜・

HEIGHT: 182.88cm (6’0)

BLOOD TYPE: AB

BODY MODIFICATIONS: frog eyes piercing (on tongue), nostril piercing, anti tragus piercing, standard lobe piercing, rook piercing

FACE CLAIM: kim hyung-seo (bibi/ soloist)

VOICE CLAIM: yoon mi-rae (yoon mirae/ soloist)

DANCE CLAIM: yeji from itzy

｡･ﾟﾟ･ PERSONALITY .・゜゜・

MBTI: isfp

MBTI TYPE: isfp is a personality type with the introverted, observant, feeling, and prospecting traits. tends to have an open mind but is always observing and judging.

POSITIVE TRAITS: decisive, funny, friendly, honest, kind, observant, wise

NEGATIVE TRAITS: grumpy, judgmental, stubborn, workaholic, careless, impulsive

OTHERS: has a rbf, constantly cusses, awkward at first, gives tough love

｡･ﾟﾟ･ STATS .・゜゜・

DANCE: 7.5/10

VOCAL: 8/10

RAP: 10/10

STAGE PRESENCE: 9.5/10

VARIETY: 9.5/10

SONGWRITING: 10/10

ACTING: 5.5/10

｡･ﾟﾟ･ CAREER INFORMATION .・゜゜・

STAGE NAME: kie

AGENCY: jyp entertainment

GROUP: stray kids

DEBUT: april 9, 2019

POSITIONS: sub vocalist, main rapper, producer, visual

REPRESENTATIVE EMOJI: 🦈💤

UNIT: vocalracha

SPOTIFY: sleepy’s faves! 🦈

｡･ﾟﾟ･ TRIVIA .・゜゜・

- kiyoon’s skzoo is a shark named choom.

- she has a maine coon cat named yeosin, has had him since 2021. currently lives with her family.

- her favorite color is indigo, and her favorite season is fall.

- she owns a black venom x22gt 250cc automatic.

- she can listen to “what do you think?” by agust d on repeat everyday.

- kie says that when she gets sleepy, she finds the most convenient spot to nap at.

- her nicknames given by her members are kimchi and key lime.

- her role models are la india, marc anthony, and her dad.

- she can’t count over 10 in english or korean because she’s used to counting in spanish.

- If she wasn’t in stray kids, she would be a linguistics professor.

- kie has a habit of fidgeting or putting her hands on her face when she is stressed or nervous.

- bang chan said that kie always looks angry when she’s really focused on something.

– things she’d like doing during vacation: swimming and eating together with the members.

– things she dislikes doing during vacation: walking for long periods of time.

- her role at the dorm is to check on everyone’s wellbeing.

- her motto: “if you continue to look at the past, you won’t find your future.”

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lageografiademicamino · 5 months

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UMK 2024 Song Review - Sara Siipola

The hype is very real around Uuden Musiikin Kilpailu (UMK), the Finnish national selection for Eurovision and the race to Malmö continues with a ballad this time!

Sara Siippola - Paskana

youtube

Sara Siipola is fairly a new name in the sky of Finnish female artists. She kind of popped out of nowhere making a record deal with Sony Music in 2019 and releasing her first singles which were fairly successful. She also released her debut album "Kaunis Kun Itken" two years later and last year she was seen in popular music tv-show "Tähdet, Tähdet".

Still never heard of of her before and the artist announcement did nothing to me.

Paskana is power song that gives no hope. It's very raw lyrically and vocally.

It's a modern ballad with immediate hook. The song itself is not a traditional power ballad but does instrumentally push its boundaries. The electronic beat has 80's sound which also reminds many of the Russian girl duo t.A.T.u's sound. R'n'b beat separates it from an average ESC ballad and makes this super easy to listen.

Sara's voice can be compared to Amy Winehouse's being capable of interpreting the painful text brilliantly. The topic of being "paskana" which is translated as fucking wreck, is easily relatable. Social media quickly filled on Monday night with heartfelt comments from people around the world crying and feeling this song.

This is simply captivating - you can't pass this without stopping to listen to this and feeling what she sings. This will translate across language barriers.

ESC doesn't allow swearing so in case of winning UMK Sara would have to find another title for her song which might be a difficult task. There have been hopes of her translating this into English or pieces of it but I do hope this masterpiece remained in Finnish. Also this would differ quite a lot from our previous ESC entries. The last time we heard a female ballad from Finland was in 2017 with NormaJohn.

In a scenario where she didn't win UMK she might be the next Bess (Ram pam pam, 2022) or Kuumaa (Ylivoimainen, 2023) which either were the winning acts but made the biggest hits of their careers with the help of UMK. Reactions have been positive everywhere you go and her UMK videoclip has already been viewed over 240 000 (more than Sexmane) times. She's on her way to stardom!

What do you think of the third UMK24 track and would you vote for Sara Siipola to go all the way to Malmö? UMK final takes place on February 10th!

#uuden musiikin kilpailu #uudenmusiikinkilpailu #umk24 #umk 2024 #songreview #review #euroviisut #eurovisionsongcontest #eurovision #eurovision 2024 #Youtube #sara siipola #umk

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mitchiegonewild · 2 years

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aot character's nationalities

okay, so from what I've found (taking things like name origins and canonical story building), im going to try and make a complete list of aot characters and their nationalities.

Eren Jaeger/Jäger: as a surprise to no one, Eren is three fourths German, one fourth Turkish.

Carla Jaeger/Jäger: Half Turkish, half German. ("Carla" comes from Germanic roots.)

Grisha Jäger/Jaeger: German. Duh.

Zeke Jaeger/Jäger: Three fourths German, one fourth English.

Mikasa Ackerman: Half Japanese, half Ashkenazi Jewish. (Duh X2. Ackerman is an Ashkenazi Jewish surname, usually hailing from Germany or Scandinavia. While I don't know which one of the two the Ackermans we see would fall under, as none of them slap me in the face as German except for perhaps Kuchel [and even she strikes me as more Italian or Dutch than anything], Ashkenazi is widely regarded as an ethnic group of their own.)

Levi Ackerman: Half Russian, half Ashkenazi Jewish. (As a half Russian Ashkenazi Jew, pretty spot on.) Levi and Russian men have similar facial structures, in which their heads are sort of heart shaped, or rounded and then pointed at the end.

Kenny Ackerman: Ashkenazi Jewish.

Kuchel Ackerman: Ashkenazi Jewish.

Armin Arlert: Okay, so (slightly?) hot take (lukewarm at best), but Armin's half German, half Finnish. He has a similar rounded face structure to most Finnish people, not to mention the hair and the eyes. (Seriously, the hair texture looks so similar.) Plus Arlert is an OLD Germanic surname, which often coincided with people of Scandinavian descent. Half German because Armin is a German name. Plus, if you look at pictures of his parents, his father resembles men of Finnish descent and his mother of women of German descent. So, tl;dr: Armin's half German, half Finnish.

Sasha Braus: I can take this one out quick as a bitch; Austrian with some Czech sprinkled in. ('Braus' is an Austrian surname. So, woo-hoo for my home country, LOL! And before people say something about how her name is a play on a German language saying...what language do you think us Austrians speak?) While not definitively Czech to the point where she can say specific family members have that descent, it's made its way into her gene pool with the hair color and texture, cheekbones/shape, and nose. (I would not say she's Russian even though 'Sasha' is definitely Russian, mostly because the other indicators point to Austrian and Czech being more likely.)

Conny Springer: Alright, hear me out AGAIN. Conny's half Slavic, and more specifically, he's half Serbian. Springer (or Špringer) is an Irish/Slavic surname often found in Serbia. Your average Serbian man and Conny share deep-set eyes, nice brows, a face that curves in that particular Conny shape, and a similar hair texture. Conny, and also John Constantine (which is what I believe is his canonical full name, someone correct me if I'm wrong), but specifically Constantine, has origins in both Old English and in Slavic language. Which brings me to his other half: German. Because when in doubt, in AOT, they're part German.

Erwin Smith: ENGLISH. next.

Hangë Zoe: Half Greek, half German. They're half Greek because the name Zoe is of greek origin. Hangë also shares qualities similar to Greek features; a Greek nose, tan skin, and dark hair. Plus with Greece still overcoming an emigration crisis as of 2019/2020, in the future, its quite plausible that many Greeks (including Hangë's possible ancestors) wound up in Germany. Hangë is a loose translation of the name "Hans", which is a VERY stereotypical German name. I mean, you literally cannot get more German than Hans unless you pull out Gretel. That being said, I do also believe that Hangë has some Indian heritage, and this is because the surname "Hange" without the umlaut gives us that of an Indian descent. Seeing has "Hangë" is, as stated before, a loose form of "Hans", the addition of an umlaut could also be just another loose form of "Hange". Although that last part might be a reach, it's not completely out of the realm of possibility that one or two of their ancestors were Indian.

Ymir: So, with Ymir, it is a COMPLETE toss up because her name was given to her by the cult as a namesake and not as a geographically given name. What we know about her is that she is; most likely fully caucasian; she has dark hair and freckles; she's taller than most of her other women comrades at 5'8"; her eyes are darker in shade and droopy. So, using that information to our advantage, I would say that she is some mixture of Dutch, and most of all, Romanian and Hungarian. While she has the sort of long face that the Dutch do, she has the complexion and facial structure of Hungarian people. Even her skin tone, which looks to be slightly more tan than everyone else's, matches that of the Hungarians and Romanians.

Historia Reiss: Half German, half Swedish. Reiss is a German surname, and Historia just fits the whole BILL (minus the height) for the average Swedish woman. I also think Historia has some Jewish in her, because Reiss is an Ashkenazi Jewish surname. (Plus, and this might be personal bias, but I'm a blonde & blue eyed Ashkenazi Jew, LOL.)

Jean Kirstein: Hear me out! Jean is not German at all; but instead, he's half Danish, half Icelandic. The first records of the name "Kirstein" were in Denmark and Prussia (a state of Germany), but was more common in Denmark and then Prussia as time went on. A quick google search of "Danish men" will show you men with Jean's striking eyes and brows that are thick at the beginning and thin out towards the end. The Icelandic is even more clear, with the two sharing very similar facial structures, with high, prominent cheekbones and a strong nose; that good ol' fashioned "Horse-Face" clear as day.

Marco Bodt: Whew. Okay, so obviously when I first heard the name 'Marco', everyone thinks; oh, he's Italian! But 'Bodt' is actually a Dutch surname, and I believe that Marco is purely Dutch. The typical Dutch man and Marco share similar face shapes (Angular and somewhat blocky), noses that have a strong base but upturn a little at the end, and slightly bigger ears that stand out a little bit.

Moblit Berner: Okay, this one's also very easy. Moblit is German and English. "Berner" is an Old Germanic name, and from what little I could scrounge up on "Moblit", it's an Irish/English name given to those with red hair. So while not a ginger, he's a English/German, probably more German than English.

Onyankopon: This one's rather easy for me as well. A very quick google search will tell you that Onyankopon is typically a Ghanian name. Given that it's a religious name, too, and Onyankopon seems to be a religious man, I think it checks out. Also, he's easily one of the coolest new characters we've seen. Give him more edits!!

Reiner Braun: Do I even have to do this one? Really? Reiner is as German as they come.

Bertholdt Hoover: Now at first, I was inclined to say that he's just German as well. But he's also Swiss! He shares LOTS of Swiss facial structures and hairlines, and "Hoover" is an anglicized version of the Swiss-German "Hubar". While I cannot account for that boy's freakishly insane height, I guess he just got the luck of the gene pool draw. So more Swiss than German, but German all the same. I'd give it a good 2/3s Swiss, 1/3rd German.

Annie Leonhardt: Okay, so fairly easy, like her other buddies; half Russian, half German! Annie is a Russian name, and she shares many characteristics of Russian women. "Leonhardt" is a German surname.

Falco & Colt Grice: Half French, half Swedish. "Grice" as a surname occurs in both old French and Scandinavian languages, and Falco (plus Colt) both look similar to Swedish men. Although we can't say for sure what Falco will look like fully grown, as we've only seen him in a few manga panels, we can look to Colt to see what he will look like. And hot damn, the resemblance is there! He's got that nose that widens a bit towards the end and eyebrows that rest sort of heavy on his eyelids. For the French aspect, we get the long, smooth facial structure and sort of pillowy-thin lips. So, safe to say that Falco and Colt are French-Swedish.

Pieck Finger: Okay, so Pieck is 3/4ths Ashkenazi Jewish and 1/4th German. "Finger" is originally derived from the Ashkenazi surname "Fingar", and can be traced back to old North Germanic origins. "Pieck" is often primarily found in North Germany, so she might actually also have some ancestors from Denmark, as they share similar jawlines and drooped eyes.

Yelena: Yelena might be the easiest one on this list besides Erwin. RUSSIAN!

If there's any I left out, lmk, I would love to do them! Thanks for reading, and remember that this is just my person head canons. You can all believe whatever you want. <3 Have a nice day!

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