#you cannot have a culture without a system of race

[autisticdoomslayer]

the world would be a better place if it was universally required to take one (1) cultural anthropology class

[theriverbeyond]

how do we know in the books that john is indigenous? can you say more about how his indigeneity is important to his story?

hello! so there is a word of god post on race (doesn't mention John but mentions that Gideon is "mixed Maori"), BUT I frankly don't think word of god statements are worth any weight without actual in-text support (see: the "dumbledore is gay" situation). SO!

Specific evidence that John Gaius is Maori, as revealed in Nona the Ninth:

When he is listing his education, John mentions having gone to Dilworth School (John 20:8). Dilworth is an all boys boarding school in Auckland and accepts students based on financial need instead of academic or sporting achievements. Demographics appear to be about 70% low income Maori boys, indicating that it is highly likely that John is Maori

John reports that P- said he looked like a "Maori-TV pink panther" (John 15:23) when his eyes turned gold. Maori TV is a TV station that is focused primarily on Maori culture & language revitalization, with presumably all or mostly Maori hosts, and tbh I don't see why P- would say this unless John was himself Maori

John uses a te reo Māori phrase ("kia kaha, kia māia") (John 5:20) when he is saying goodbye to the corpses in the cryo lab before the power is shut off. Though it is possible he said this as a non-Maori kiwi, but in combination with the previous two points of evidence I think this all very strongly points to him being Maori

He also renames his daughter Kiriona Gaia, "Kiriona" being just literally the name "Gideon" in te reo Māori

TLT is not a series that hands you anything on a silver platter but to ME this is all pretty solid proof

Why is this relevant to The Locked Tomb?

In Nona the Ninth, we learn that before he completed apotheosis and ate the solar system, John was basically trying to save the earth from capitalism-caused climate change. Climate justice and the rights of indigenous people over their own land are deeply tied together, in the same way that climate catastrophe and capitalism/ imperialism/ colonialism are linked. disclaimer that this is NOT my area of study and others have definitely said it better; this is just the basic gist as I understand it, but on quick search I found some sources here and here if you want to do some reading.

TLT is not a series that hands you anything on a silver platter, but i don't think it is a stretch to see John as an indigenous man trying to save the earth and getting ignored and shut down at every turn by primarily western colonial powers (PanEuro, the USA) who declare him a terrorist and then as a reader thematically connecting that to the experience of indigenous climate activists IRL

there are absolutely TLT meta posts that have discussed this before me; tumblr search is nonfunctional and I have been looking for an hour and a half and cannot find anything specific even though i KNOW i reblogged multiple posts about this in the first few weeks following NTN's release. sad & I am sorry

I think that by the time the books take place, John is 10k years removed from the cultural context he grew up in, with the Nine Houses having become a genocidal colonial power in their own right (with more parallels to be made between John's forever war for the resources of literal life energy and like, oil wars), but I also think that John Gaius is a fictional character who can represent and symbolize multiple different things in service of telling a story. (not to mention the potential thematic parallels being made to how oppressed people sometimes are pressed into replicating the power dynamics of their oppressors and continuing the cycle--now that is a tumblr post i KNOW i read last year and definitely cannot find right now, once again sad & I am sorry)

How Radical Was John Gaius, Really is a forum thread that was locked by the moderators after 234534645674564 pages of heated debate

[system-voices]

Hi everybody, I wanna start off by giving some context to the body & who I am.

I'm Kevin (👊) & the body is mixed, half white & half Filipino. I, in headspace, am a black alter.

One of our online friends has been showing us posts about alter races, the debate of whether or not their real, is it gatekeeping or justified to say that poc alters in white bodies (or even just of bodies that do not align to their race in headspace) cannot participate in practices of the cultures their races align with. You know, that type of debate.

Before I say what I'm going to say, I need to remind you all listen to the voices of POC & POC systems. Now, here's my particular take on this syscourse.

White bodied systems & their poc alters saying slurs or trying to justify white people's racist behavior are racist. You are in a white body, whether you have a host who is white, a core who is white, or even if you have no one in headspace who identifies as white it doesn't matter. It's racist. You're being actively racist. You are in a white body, people are perceiving you as white. You being in a white body means you have the responsibility to show other white bodies that saying slurs isn't okay. That certain racist behaviors aren't okay. & if this is something that offends you or makes you feel suddenly very defensive about your behaviors. Maybe you're more racist then you thought. This is not something like: "oh I have a Japanese alter & they have a Japanese name! I'd love to learn more about their culture & participate in certain parts of it that I can to bring joy to this alter" this is not who this is aimed at. If their name is a normal name from their culture or if their name is from a show/movie/media from that culture, that's fine. You guys indulging in open practices, clothes, food from that culture? No problem. This is normal, no matter if you're a system or not. Trying gate keep open things or (normal/public) names is the starting spiral to back tracking into racism. It's a slippery slope to suddenly being against interracial relationships & the debate if someone is "enough of X to talk about it". Cultural sharing is NOT cultural appropriation. If it is an open practice for anyone to partake in, then it's fine. Food, everyday clothing, learning about their culture, learning their language(s). This is something you can do even if you're not the race that culture is aligned with. This applies to any race. An alters race is real, but that does not mean they're being perceived as that race. & I wish a lot of those alters would realize that. Yes, I am black, but I am not being perceived that way. I'm not even being perceived like a man, another thing I am, because the body does not look that way. I am not being treated like a black man when I front. When I front I am being treated the way the outer world perceives the body: A white passing "woman". & because of that I don't say or do certain things that maybe I would if people could see & acknowledge my blackness. Along with the fact that my life experience is not the average black persons. I cannot speak on black peoples experiences I can only speak on my experience, & I accept that.

Some Reminders because I know this websites reading comprehension can be ass:

I'm not saying this to make anyone feel bad, I'm saying this to state my thoughts on a topic. This is not secretly about gatekeeping culture. It's about not letting more white bodied systems, or white people, try & use those alters to "justify" their racist behavior without having to do any self reflection.

LISTEN TO POC & POC SYSTEMS, BEGGING PLEADING ON MY KNEES YOU GUYS!!!

[bberry005]

i haven't finished andor yet (as of writing this post i still have two more episodes), but i do have to say that while i think the show is overall well done, it dropped the ball so hard on dealing with how the intersections of race and gender interact with all of the systems at work in andor ESPECIALLY when it comes to big, incredibly relevant topics like genocide, cultural genocide, and histories of colonialism. also it makes some of the incredible writing fall flat because you cannot write a successful, well nuanced story about resistance in the way andor sought to portray it without critically examining how race and gender inform interactions with the system and how acts of rebellion are done

[songoftrillium]

Hi!!

I saw your reblogged ask about WtE redesigning the Get, and I'm curious what you can share?

I'm working on my own rewrite project (it's mostly a redesign of the W5 system, designed to work with either my patchwork mess of lore or with WtE lore) and I've been having some trouble with the Get, so I'd love to hear your thoughts!

I'm sharing this as someone who has always held a deep affection for Fenrir.

When redesigning the tribe I wanted to do it from a few angles at once.

What motivates a warrior? What is, what is it that makes a society one that is oriented so closely around battle prowess?

What history can do to shape a society into a society of warriors

How does the warriors outlook shape society at large?

What parts of Fenrir history can have direct parallels with minimal effort?

What key parts of the Fenrir are absolutes that cannot be removed without making the tribe unrecognizable to fans?

So, I did exactly that.

The first thing I did was I talked to scandinavian, sami, and slav people actively living in europe and got some pretty deep lessons on outlooks and culture, as well as numerous history lessons from a first-person perspective on things. I then befriended a polish-speaking pagan that was happy to teach me about cultures on sacrifice as both a literal practice and one that affects outlook. In that light, I rewrote the tribe to be one that went from 'seeking a good death' to a tribe that 'seeks causes worth dying for.'

Actually, why don't I just share with you the Get! (glyph used with permission by Feral Noesis)

Get of Fenris (see below the cut)

Dziewanik. Fenrir. Gummoš. Feriksen Suku. Vilkati. Vukarci. Legends, clothing, and common parlance from Sápmi to Carpathia speak of lupine spirits, warriors and deities all linked to the wilderness, hunting, society, and even to some of the oldest creation myths, and in each of these societies, a tribe of fearless Garou emerged. Even among a race of warriors, the Fenrir stand out as the one tribe well and truly composed of warriors from the top down. They throw themselves heart-first into a worthy cause, wearing scars with pride, howling the defeat of their enemies, and maintaining a reputation built on Glory wrought through great sacrifice and determination. Theirs is a culture of warriors whose history is etched in rocks and ancient temples deep in the wilderness.

Their origins can be traced to before the crusades, following the emigration of Germanic and proto-baltic-slav tribes fleeing the Huns both west and northwards. Regularly raided from the Carpathians, it would be Fenris’ wolves who came to find human tribes espousing their very ideals, worshipping the plants and rocks around them. Taking up the hammers and axes these people used in everyday life and now had to use to defend themselves, these became the symbols for the tribe itself—the weapons of the common man fighting alongside kin against insurmountable enemies and overcoming side-by-side.

This culture of adoption, cause, and sacrifice remains unchanged to this day. Lineage alone doesn’t make a Get of Fenris. If a cub cannot stand up to the tribe’s brutal and often bloody trials, they stand no chance against the kind of enemy the Get pursue. Fenrir maneuvers and tactics were first developed deep inside the mountains, combating the Jotunn. Long ago, these twisted and vile giants battered Fenrir around like playthings.

Since the beginning, those espousing the ideals of Fenris seek worthy causes they can throw themselves into body and soul. Their fearlessness lies in their determination weighing their strikes. To a Fenrir, nothing in life worth having comes without significant personal work to obtain, from the manner in which they maintain their spirit affinities to their very homes they always build by hand.

Heroism is not without its drawbacks. The life of a Fenrir is often short and violent. This has led to a belief that the tribe is comprised of mindless warriors with insatiable bloodlust. Those who run with the Fenrir find them to be direct, plain-worded, and espousing deep convictions for the causes they’ve dedicated their lives to.

Leadership in the tribe follows the philosophy of Fenris, that seniority has no meaning. Those most capable of leading in their position do so. Their zedakh’fa, or jarls, earn their right to rule with iron and fang; the leaders of their packs are those most capable of instilling valor in their wolves, and the leader of the household is the kin most knowledgable and skilled in navigating the specific needs and boundaries to be navigated at home.

The combat prowess inherent in every Get of Fenris Cliath is one that is hard-earned and, if they learn to appropriately harness their rage, often ascend to become unparalleled champions in their septs once they ascend the ranks to Adren and beyond — assuming they live that long.

Appearance

Extant Fenrir lineages reveal themselves to be massive gray wolves with broad shoulders and hard-set jaws. This trend, however, peters out significantly, given the diversity of their tribe members. The visual marking of their tribe members are what truly helps them stand out.

The tribe observes a skin marking tradition originating from packs among 9th century Lechites, where Fenrir, lacking battle scars for their prowess, took to their Galliards, adorning them with glyphery. These Get chronicled their deeds for all to see, with both ashes rubbed into fresh wounds to make them clearly visible. In modern times, this has grown to represent multiple kinds of tattoos across numerous cultures, with the glyphs appearing in the negative spaces between the tattoos.

To quote the late Mother Larissa: “Covered in Blood is the natural state of a Fenrir.” In ceremony, a Fenrir is nearly always marked with blood in some way, from adornments of glyphs touting their latest deeds to bearing the bloodspatter of their fallen allies (and their enemies) so as to gift the sept’s lupus with their scent.

Tribe Patron

Fenris is himself one of the original 13 Garou of the First Pack before; the one who held strength and honor most dearly in his heart. He and his wolves waged war against the ancient Jotunn, deep in the mountainous Fjords of Norway. It was here he learned how to think before acting and listen before thinking. Beyond a Warrior, Fenris was a believer in sacrifice, whose tactics espouse his own personal participation in battles. His chiminages to Gaia were of great personal loss, but also strengthened his packs.

All Fenrir espouse these values, that nothing in this world that is worth having is merely given, but gained through personal sacrifice, be it time, task, or blood, expecting no quarter, and giving none.

Character Creation

A well-made Fenrir is a fighter first and a lover second. Physical prowess matters more to this tribe perhaps than any other. Dexterity, Brawl, and Melee are great investments, with Strength and Stamina coming in a close second. A stoic tribe places very little stock in Expression; a Fenrir simply speaks their mind. Where you can however, give them a little empathy. This helps them read through those hard exteriors.

When it comes to Gifts, Fenrir are known for their unshakable will. Willpower, that is, Resolve and Composure, are key to using most of their Gifts. For other Gifts, plan to invest equally in Intimidation and Primal-Urge.

Outlook

The philosophical foundation of a Fenrir is one grounded firmly in materialism. That is, a Get will seldom concern themselves with the affairs of their afterlife and will often consider the things they will leave behind when they go. A Fenrir hero is one whose communities venerate them, whose stories are told, and whose values are upheld as philosophies by the families affected positively by a Fenrir.

The journey to finding motivation to equiring considerable effort on behalf of these warriors to make such a legacy. But, once established, there is no hesitation, no fear, when they take up arms to protect those they love most. This is where the stalwart, unshakeable resolve the Get of Fenris are known for comes to the surface, leading to the bloody tales of glory and unfettered violence that hallmark their mythology.

Spirit Affinities

Bear, Champion, Fenris, Wolf

[prose-among-the-trees]

I feel the need finally to bring up introjects in a way that’s going to be a hot take, because good god am I sick of having things that I have experienced physically be told to me by those who haven’t.

I respect whatever an introject remembers or identifies with from their source, and I’d like to say this straight off because this is important. I know of alters and parts for whom source is integral to their identity, specifically the way it relates to day to day trauma and how that intermingles.

That being said, please, as an introject who has had something happen or occur or has some sort of disability from source, do not try to tell me what it is like because I have already experienced it physically.

You got scars in whatever media you were sourced from? Lovely, but as someone who is forced to bear that burden of looking deformed when those scars can be visible every single day, do not try to tell me what that is like.

You have physical disabilities that were gained or you were born with in whatever media you introjected from? Perfect, but as someone who cannot function without my heart being assisted by pacemaker, do not tell me what it’s like to struggle as though I’ve not gone through it and as though I do not continue to bear that weight.

You as an introject are of a certain race in source and remember knowing about the food you consumed of that culture? Do not try to correct me, as someone of that culture, on what I identify with and hold.

You have memories of sexual assault from the media you were sourced from? Do not dare presume you can speak over those who have experienced that bodily.

Source memories, pseudo memories, exo memories, whatever you’d like to call them, are individual to your trauma and your struggle as someone with osdd or did. I understand that.

However, your source does not give you the right to talk over, to one up, or God forbid to “educate” those who have dealt with or experienced those issues on how to live with them.

I spoke to an introject today who had scars in their source and identifies with them as an alter. When I spoke up about my own, I was told that I needed to speak someplace where I would not upset others. Because my scars are not desirable or battle caused, I cannot discuss my own experiences.

This in essence is a lot of the issue I have with fictive heavy online systems on places like discord or even tumblr. These memories, these source associations, which I know are indicative of their own trauma in some way, somehow surpass the validity of someone who has actually experienced the struggle physically because it’s more presentable and more desirable.

It’s not all of them, but it’s enough of them that the fictive heavy/introject heavy syscord systems now have that reputation, and it makes interacting so frustrating.

I should not have to explain why claiming an experience you haven’t physically gone through as though you have because you’re an introject is bad. I shouldn’t have to explain that speaking over individuals who deal with these things physically is actively silencing minority groups.

Again let me note that I have full respect for introjects who identify with memories that did not happen to their body. The only thing I ask is that I’m not spoken over in favor of more desirable or digestible experiences that they claim are just as impactful as me living with the things I do.

I know systems who have these memories and respect others who have experienced them physically. For those of you who fall into this category, thank you. You know who you are.

For those of you who believe in things like alter race, separate disabilities being just as valid as experiencing them physically (to the point that you’re trying to educate bodily disabled people/systems)- please listen to those who are frustrated and angry. Please understand why trying to speak over and educate that group of people or any group of people as though you’ve gone through it physically is damaging.

I understand your memories reflect your trauma, likely indirectly for some of you, and I empathize with that.

Please take the time to be respectful to the voices of the groups that have been silenced and spoken over in favor of an introject’s take on something purely source related.

The people of color with osdd or did that have been speaking up about others claiming their races as alters have been laughed off or told that they’re overreacting. They are not. Keep fighting the good fight guys. You’re fantastic in every way. As someone who isn’t in that position, I want to uplift your voices and the things that need to be said. You’ve got my support all the way.

In the past I’ve let other systems try to explain why alter race exists and why their ‘alters of color’ are just as valid as actual people of color. I believed them.

An alter who has the memory or individual source created experience of being oppressed but has not been that way bodily cannot claim to struggle in the same way.

If you got this far reading, thanks. I’m glad I was able to share this with someone.

Be safe.

[saintmelangell]

Hi! this is all so interesting and is genuinely making me reflect very much; you're one of if not the most insightful people talking about religion out there, I've no doubt about it. I wanted to ask, do you have any thoughts on how this friction you speak of and the reality of christianity as an oppressive force manifests itself in the cultures of peoples who were violated by it/it was forced on? (I confess I'm thinking specifically of the syncretism and catholicism of latin america, especially in light of folk traditions but also the rise (and fall) of liberation theology there.)

i think that the incorporation of liberation theology into more mainstream forms of christian ideology are anesthetizing its revolutionary impulse. part of this is the fault of white theologians who are unable to engage with the more radical potentials of liberation theology: and why would they, since dogma upholds the privilege which certain groups are given in the church? just as christianity benefits from and thus cannot engage with its own supremacy, white theologians benefit from systems of ideological supremacy in christianity and cannot engage with it effectively without undermining themselves. black and brown theologians have been gesturing to this for decades and it still has yet to take root in any meaningful way in methodology.

i as a gringo can never engage with liberation theology in its original form: this is the nature of christianity, it will be transformed by my practice of it. if i try to engage with latin american liberation theology in a latin american context as a gringo, unless i am specifically deconstructing my own inevitable condescension to people who are allowed less privileged than i am in the structure of the ecclesia i am not really doing anything revolutionary through my contribution. i think i'm off the main point of your question here, though: to be sure, in my own literature i am sure to clarify my criticisms of liberation theology are not of its roots as a means of liberating those who are oppressed on grounds of race and class, but the way in which it has been coopted by ideology, and the way in which it itself coopts inevitably from the oppressed (just as christianity is itself coopted from the oppressed).

marcella althaus-reid explores this problem in detail in this essay from the good news of the body, which i highly recommend reading as a piece of criticism of liberation theology. unfortunately i don't have much to recommend in terms of further criticism, because most criticism of liberation theology comes from people who don't like its use of marxism or see it as too radical, which i think is emphatically not the issue. liberation theology is attempting to retroactively fix a system it recognizes as broken, because christianity is structured in such a way that it cannot be fixed by external forces. but ultimately i don't think you can fix the system at all. christianity has to be broken open to be fixed. the core of marxism, from which liberation theology derives, is revolution: thus christianity must be revolutionized in order to be fixed, which involves its total deconstruction. but liberation theology cannot embody this impulse without also deconstructing itself since it is part of christianity and still relies on christianity for its ideological basis. but i still think that it is the way forward in terms of christian praxis.

[no-future-mudwasps]

< Hey, Saleh! It’s Hachiko, with Luna Wing.

So, mechs aren’t really my strong suit, but a few months back, I briefly tried out a chassis in simulation. GMS-SP1C variant, quadruped, with a few little mods. It hit mach 1.5 before it blew up

It was amazing. Ever since, I’ve been digging up whatever I can on chassis racing, and it seems like all roads lead to Suldan. Somehow, I’ve got a hunch that you might know a thing or two about the topic. :)

I don’t know how it grew to be such a huge sport over there, but I’ve seen a tiny bit of the chassis designs, the circuits…what’s it like? Out of curiosity, is combat permitted during races? >

Hachi! You most perfect of creatures, hello, and bless you dearly for this question. I'm no racer myself, but what I am is ready to proselytize about my planet's culture and history, and any engineer worth salt on Suldan knows about the races.

(I will bring back my signature for this so it is not all terrible to read in green-text, by the by.)

SO. I am going to help Chandresekhar & Herschel Ltd. save some money on their advertising budget today and speak a bit on the sport of chassis racing in Suldan.

One cannot have the races without first having mechs, and one cannot have mechs without having trouble. This is and was the case for Suldan, as our planet was-- like many others-- terraformed in brief bursts by the charter which deigned to bring humanity there. I admit I am lacking on the particulars in this era, but they must have had chassis for the purpose of handling the local environ, construction, defense, et cetera... And, naturally, when humans have a thing which moves, they will wish to see who can move it the fastest. At any rate, Suldan's particular family of charter groups had an eye for fine engineering, and Suldan has large swathes of flat land ideal for the building of tracks, and before even a fifth of the planet's 250-odd years of habitation were up the concept of bespoke mech racing was well-entrenched in the Suldani consciousness.

Naturally, the Emir came and fucked this up.

The reasons for this are twofold, and only one is ‘because he rotted what he touched’. You see, chassis racing on Suldan has taken many forms, but by and large it has remained both wholly terrestrial and at least somewhat circuit-based. This means that while there are dead sprints out there, most races have to remain low-speed enough that spin-outs and red-outs alike can be protected against. I prefer this; it is harder to engineer a thing which can survive dynamic environmental stress and endurance tests than simply building a vaguely-human-shaped mass driver. However, the Emir had a taste for raw adrenaline and blood, and so under his rule the sport turned brutal. Where there had been scant rules regarding ‘demotivator’ systems and bodyblocking beforehand, there was now more and more open combat at high speed. Imagine, dear starfighter that you are, attempting overtake maneuvers in atmosphere by virtue of your own superstructure, no more than a meter from the ground, only to be met by a sword or explosive every few seconds. There is no time for artistry, only war.

We lost many celebrated racers that way. Most simply stopped competing, others went down in flame. Our own Matthias Herschel, a prodigy on the track since the age of 16, nearly lost his life trying to keep up with the changing sport.

Now, we find ourselves in the nascent post-Emir future. As with all things, racing is rebuilding itself slowly, and as with many things C&H has had a hand in this. Matthias Herschel has done much as his partner has for the muhak, and championed greater regulation in this sport; now two distinct variants tend to exist, that of the official trials such as you can find through the Blueshift Racing League we have begun to sponsor offworld in which weapons are kept to a minimum, and the scrappier live-fire races, unofficially known as ‘the pursuits’. Even these are made safer now, as C&H has lent large parts of their design philosophy to the sorts of specialized tuning, ruggedization, and denial-based weaponry that is required of the field.

That is the history lesson, and most of what I can speak to; however, I may also tell you that a specialized racing chassis is a thing of beauty. It is also for this reason why I love official circuits most; one can generalize for combat aptitude, true, but when every aspect of a machine is made to survive at its barest tolerance, that is when you find poetry in motion. A turn becomes instinct, the machine a thing of viscera as it strains to defend its pilot against the most primordial harm. The ground flies beneath, be it under roller-foot or skid— touching the earth, you cannot forget your speed, move so quick as to shoot right past infinity and into meaninglessness, as in vacuum. Each movement must be concerted, intended, perfect, or the wind will tear you apart like the limbs of a howling beast. To race terrestrial is to know thrust beyond sanity.

[S H]

[thedreadvampy]

I think a thing that I often react strongly with is that I really do not think it's ever actually correct to say that a specific experience of rape or abuse is exclusive to a certain group of people.

and it happens a lot, implicitly or explicitly. people will say 'yes rape is bad for everyone but unless you're a man/a woman/transfem/transmasc/a lesbian/asexual/xyz you can't understand [feature of rape culture]' or just speak to you as someone uniquely vulnerable to a certain experience.

and I find this. difficult. because we're all saying it in different directions and I wanna know at what point we have to acknowledge that cis women, cis men, trans women, trans men, non-binary people both AFAB AMAB and other, people of every race, sexuality, and social circumstance, are all subject to the stigmatisation, trauma and dehumanisation of rape and abuse

but it's difficult because it's a fairly subtle distinction. because there is pattern analysis involved. Like for example being victimised then framed as a threat is not unique to trans and black women but it definitely happens more often. Being slutshamed in court as part of the case for the defense is not unique to women and people perceived as women but misogyny does provide more tools to do that than it does for cishet men.

recognising that there's a difference between individual and systemic experience doesn't mean ignoring systems.

but also, I really would like us to be clear about these distinctions and also to listen better to each other. cause I cannot count the amount of times I've heard male survivors (including trans men who have experienced being raped as women and treated very poorly as women, which is weird) confidently assert that only men are silenced and treated as if being raped is a weakness or failure of will, and are uniquely Not Taken Seriously. A lot of materials on transfem self-protection I've seen frame 'if you cause a scene you'll be treated as an aggressor' as exclusive to transfems or to AMAB or male-perceived victims. A lot of cis women claim that only AFAB people experience sexualisation on sight, or bodily control, or constant threat, or sometimes rape at all (tbh cis women say a lot of shite in this area). I've seen both lesbians and asexuals claim that experiencing corrective rape only happens to their community. I've seen a lot of people say a lot of shit is Only Comprehensible To Their Specific Group, basically.

and like ultimately, and I could go on listing examples for 1000000 years, a lot of these experiences are not just 'occasionally other groups catch flak' but a vast majority of them are like. Extremely common across basically all demographics of survivors. And I would really really really like us to be able to acknowledge that without losing sight of the fact that marginalisation does affect how likely certain tools are to be used and certain experiences are to be associated.

I actually don't know how to say this without it looking like I'm saying 'everyone is equal and we're all the same and don't need systems thinking', which I'm not. but like. please listen when people tell you about their experiences cause I have talked with a LOT of people of a LOT of different backgrounds, identities and genders about their experiences of abuse, rape, and the associated stigma and there are differences but as survivors, we have more experiences in common than different tbh.

[qftim-c]

Hello there!

Due to seeing some accusations of us co-owners and our server being TGR supporters im here to set the record straight.

This whole thing all started from just one person, and if i may be honest it seems like we are being tied into it by Overlee/lh.

And Connie saying this, i don’t appreciate Overlee using my partners screenshots for leverage when Ambrose was trying to apologize and deescalate the situation that Tutti/Sandy started.i only use one screenshot and censor it best i can because of the matter it posesses.

Not to mention they didnt censor theyre screenshots they took from Ambrose for people to harass them more easily.

What Tutti/Sandy said was all they’re doing and im deeply sorry for they’re behavior. I wish we could of controlled the situation before they did anything and im sincerely sorry i upset Overlee this much.

That includes our server behavior as well, we only were insulting @overlee because most of us didn’t understand they’re process of drawing. We still are sad there isn’t much representation but we cannot control what the owners of Overlee do in they’re continuation, just like how they cant control what we do with ours. The overlee co-owners are amazing artists, and i do hope they understand this whole fiasco isn’t worth fighting over on the internet, i mean its the internet people.

We also understand that Overlee has been accused of other things before, some stuff is questionable including the “April fools ship” but I’ve discussed this in private with Overlee and will not bring it up here.

But i will add, Overlee using whitewashing of POC character as a comparison for lack of body representation, more accurately, them using it as a way to dismiss Tutti/Sandy’s feelings on their lack of body representation.

Theres a huge difference between character building/anatomy/body head canons and Race/skin/cultural identity head canons.

On to with the accusations of the server being Proshipper, Child you know what, and TGR supporters is completely unacceptable, many people within this fandom have been traumatized by such things, including Us, (Ambrose and Connie).

If you haven’t realized by now, accusations against people who aren’t supportive of things like this, or heck if they’ve had traumatic experiences with them influences they’re mental and emotional state.

(To Overlee) I also don’t understand why you are using your fan base as a justification system to have your back. A fan base is for people to enjoy and love a fandom with same interests, not to be used as a protection system if you do something wrong.

I understand Overlee is upset and might feel they are cornered but this isn’t supposed to be a post to attack the Overlee co-owners.

Ive been in the fandom since it started and me and Ambrose both strive to fix the fandom with our continuation just as i hope Overlee does.

Please realize that this whole thing is silly, of course both sides are upset but making something like this public?

Anyway i will not be getting into this more. Cause Internet drama is ick/lh

if Overlee wants to talk about this without making it a public matter im all ears.

Hope yall have a great night!

Screenshot below.

[disease-danger-darkness-silence]

The White Ally Manifesto

I was planning on making a free ebook but honestly it's just bullet points. I may make a printable booklet or pamphlet that better explains everything.

This is my idea (as a white person. POC, you are welcome to correct me as you see fit. Genuinely, I am trying to talk to other white people about how to be good allies. You are obviously welcome to this convo) of what a good ally to POC should look like. It means acknowledging certain things and taking certain actions.

~~~~~~~~~~

I am not directly responsible for all of the bad things happening to people of color today, and I acknowledge that.

However! Many of my ancesters were, and many people who look like me are.

I must acknowledge that I benefit from the system of racism that oppresses people of color, even if I don't personally see it in action.

That's how privilege works: you don't see it, because you've never had to.

I may have done things in the past that I am ashamed of. I must learn from those mistakes, not brush over them or ignore them.

It is my job to educate myself on my privilege, and on the system of oppression that I operate within.

It is not the job of people of color to educate me.

It is not the job of people of color to forgive me.

However, when a person of color speaks about their experience as a person of color, it is my responsibility to listen, with my whole head and heart. Their experience may not be universal, but it is their truth. At the very least, I owe it to the world to bear witness to other people's truth. But when people talk, there is a potential learning experience to be had.

My experience is also not universal. It is only my truth, and no one else's. The sooner I am able to recognize that, the sooner I can begin the good work of dismantling the kyrarchy.

This is not about me. This is not about me. This. Is. Not. About. Me.

I must see color, because the system we exist in sees it. I am not color-blind to prejudice and racism. I cannot afford to be.

My social justice will be intersectional. I will acknowledge that race, ethnicity, sex, religion, culture, perceived sexuality and gender, and a multitude of other microcosms of what it means to be human, all play a part in oppression.

Identity politics is not my role to partake in. I will not attempt to gatekeep anyone from any community (unless they're Nazis, and then yes, I will gatekeep them).

I must know what strengths and weaknesses I have in order to be a good, strong ally. This means being very honest with myself about what I am willing to give up to do the right thing. I will question if I am willing to be an outcast; if I am willing to have friends and family angry at me; if I am willing to be arrested; if I am wiling to die.

I will have the strength to stand up for people of color, women, LGBTQIA+ people, and any other oppressed minority that I see being oppressed, whether that is a micro- or a macro-aggression.

I will, however, listen if POC tell me to shut up, stand down, or chill out. I will let POC take the lead on their own justice, because this is not about me.

This list of I statements is incredibly ironic and I will also acknowledge that.

I will protect the identities of those around me, and myself if it keeps them safe.

I am there to lend legitimacy to the movement. I will not engage in violence or property damage if it will harm the cause (which is almost always).

If someone is attempting to encourage me to engage in violence or property damage, I will assume that person is a Fed and trying to discredit the movement.

If I am not welcome or needed in a particular situation or place, I will leave quietly and without protest.

I will not tolerate the presence of abusers, potential cult leaders, and narcissistic personalities in the movement. I will support efforts to remove them so that people feel safe.

I will always remember that I have more growing to do.

And I will always rmemever that this is not about me. It is about what I can give to a good and just cause, not what recognition I can attain.

[vouam]

Hi, I read a post you made and was curious, could you please expand on what you meant by this :

"I knew the world would be a better place with gender abolition rather than gender liberation. I came to the realisation that gender ideology enforces the socialised gender binary that was designed to oppress women."

What do you mean when you say the gender binary, like what specific ideas or examples illustrate the term "gender binary" in the context of an oppressive system meant to control for others' benefit regardless of the controlled people's wellbeing and best interest? Curious too what's the most important differences you see between gender liberation and abolition?

I'm not sure if I'm a gender abolitionist, don't know enough about it yet. As a woman I'm personally motivated in advocating for women, making shame for feminine/female stereotypes irrelevant or people being immune to it's effects. As a human being I'm invested in removing oppressive systems from everyone though I normally look at it from a stress/poverty perspective instead of gender, race etc. In any case I think huge cultural shifts take a long time and go through a lot of awkward phases as a normal part of the culture shifting and evolving into something healthy. I think it takes a lot of patience and making sure to bask in lovely things and not press too hard for perfectionism over progress. I admire that you care about these topics and are taking steps to be verbal about advocating for yourself and all women in general.

Thank you for your question!

So when I refer to gender ideology and the gender binary, I’m talking about socialised gender. Basically the gender roles associated with male and female (stereotypes that have been developed over thousands of years that generally favour men as strong leaders and intelligent while women are domestic, submissive etc.) Socialised gender is also referred to by transgender people when they are asked what gender means/what they define gender as. They say this because obviously they cannot say a woman is an adult human female, because then being trans wouldn’t be a thing. They constantly refer to this idea that sex and gender are different - where sex is biological and gender is social (ie gender roles)

This is the main basis of the gender liberation movement. Conservatives say that your gender role should match your biological sex, whereas the gender liberation movement says that regardless of your biology - you can be whatever gender you want because it’s a social thing.

I, as a gender abolitionist, see a lot of flaws in this movement. Because it thrives on the idea that social gender should exist. They acknowledge that there is a social difference between a man and a woman, that if you feel socially like a woman when you’re biologically male - that makes you a woman.

I think its misogynistic and confusing to label ‘woman’ and ‘man’ as a set of social roles/feelings/identity. It implies people who don’t conform to those ideas are no longer women/men, it implies that female oppression was based from an identity rather than our biology. It also implies that women and men are perfect social fits to their gender and that if you don’t match that, or aren’t comfortable with that, you’re non binary. Like what 😭 Especially when the ‘gender role’ of women is insulting and degrading NO woman feels fully comfortable being expected to act that way.

As a gender abolitionist I genuinely believe society would be better off without the idea of social gender. That man/woman refers to someone’s biology but you can still act/dress/present as however you want. Nothing would be considered masculine or feminine such as fashion, personality traits etc. And we can all just live freely without expectations to fit into a social role. In a gender abolitionist society, no one would be transgender, because gender would only refer to biology. Just as someone cannot be trans blue eyed, or trans racial. Instead, you could still present however you want, but you would not refer to yourself as ‘woman/man’ because you look or act a certain way.

Hope that all makes sense and lmk if you have any more questions!

[messinwitheddie]

There hasn’t been any attempted raids on the Hymenopteracian Queen's homeworld since Cini died, right?

How’s Gir doing after Zim finally pass away?

I have been waiting for so long for someone to let me info dump about about my ETF space bee head canons! :D (brace yourself)

First off, the Hymenopteracians, aka Space bees, would highly appreciate the fact you referred to them by their race's proper name. (To them, "bee" is a derogatory slurr that Irkens call them). Expect a meteorite at your doorstep filled with jars of honey, a bottle of mead, a small batch of honey buns, a book of pressed exotic flowers from their homeworld and a seemingly endless scroll of hand written thank you notes in an unreadable and misspelled language from billions of pupas (school-aged Hymenopteracian children) in the near future. (Princess, worker and male drone Hymenopteracians)

1. To answer your first question, no. The Hymenopteracian homeworld, which consists of the planet itself and its' seven moons when translated into English is called, "All-Hive", has not been raided by the armada since loooong before Cini's death--

*lots of head canons ahead. You can skip over it if you like. The asterisks will signal when my bs is through.

***

Because All-Hive was colonized and forced to ally with the Irken Armada CENTURIES before Cini was ever born. Cini was only there to renew a longstanding treaty between the two races.

The Hymenopteracians were the second race of sentient beings the Irkens came into contact with since the beginning of the Control Brain takeover (the first being the Vortian).

When the Irkens first landed on All-Hive, they were awestruck.

All-Hive was a paradise absolutely overflowing with natural resources, including sugar cane, molasses, wheat, rice and dozens of other staples in the Irken diet. Of course, Irkens were introduced to the miracle that is honey (and The Hymenopteracians were introduced to the miracle that is natural Irken silk).

All-Hive, pre Irken contact, made the garden of Eden look like a dumpster covered in bird shit, the planet was SO beautiful and fertile.

The seven hives populating the planet, until Irken contact, existed in near perfect harmony (most conflict that occurred only occurred within each of the 7 hives themselves and set conflicts consisted of petty royal family drama. The seven queens of All-Hive rarely conflict without reaching a peaceful resolution) Such conflicts paled in comparison to the bloody wars waged between the hives of old Irk.

Their culture puts cooperation as the highest priority... Unlike Irkens, who only resemble insects at a glance, Hymenopteracians ARE a race of hive-mind insects, though sentient. (No, Irkens and Hymenopteracians cannot successfully crossbreed with one another.

The Hymenopteracians had developed little tech in terms of weapons, defensive or offensive. The Irkens took advantage of this/ their traditionally peaceful nature and easily claimed All-Hive and the entire solar system it orbited in for themselves and began developing the first "snacking system", Producia (the main source of nearly all raw materials/ ingredients harvested and distributed to the other Irken snacking systems to this day.)

The Hymenopteracians were forced to relocate their hives to their planet's moons, which the Irkens had taraformed into MASSIVE commercial farms, while their home planet was developed into restaurants, shopping cities and other such atrocities. Their workers were forced to quadruple their productivity during harvests, straining the planet/moons environmentally and compromised the health of the worker populations to the point of societal collapse. An outrageous percentage of their harvest was taken by the Irken empire. Many Hymenopteracians starved and the Queens of that era birthed meager swarms.

The Irkens even toyed with the idea of eliminating the queen system altogether and just slapping a smeetery on All-Hive designed to produce only worker bees. The Hymenopteracians feared extinction for the first time in their history.

Riots and sniper stinging operations were launched in protests. Smear campaigns were streamed throughout the empire to villainize the Hymenopteracians in retaliation. (Now you know why Zim dislike bees! A stretch, I know, but hey, everyone has their fan theories...)

Eventually, the Irkens noticed that the quality of their the snacks, which was sinfully DELICIOUS at the beginning of the Hymenopteracian takeover, started to decline. Everything tasted AWFUL. Discourse erupted throughout the empire.

Tallest Greezee, who was determined to build the snacking system, Foodcourtia, first made sincere attempts to negotiate with the Hymenopteracian queens. He invested shmillions of monies, countless hours of in-person meetings and several armies of drone power into restoring All-Hive to it's formal glory.

Well... close to it. The Hymenopteracian race is still in full service to the Irken Empire. All-Hive is still the capital planet of the snacking system, Producia, and an obscene amount of All-Hive's harvest goes to making snacks for the empire.

But All-Hive's environment has been restored to near-perfect condition in modern times. The planet is 88% reclaimed by the Hymenopteracians and they have full sovereignty over their involuntarily taraformed moons.

Classified Irken history dictates that Tallest Greezee had actually fallen in love with one of the seven Hymenopteracian queens (well, smeets are told Greezee fell in love with Hymenopteracian cuisine, which is true, but he fell deeply in love with one of the queens first.) Tallest Greezee wrote the peace treaty between the Irkens and Hymenopteracians himself in an attempt to ask for her hand, which she accepted, only because he kept his word and drastically changed the policies that were oppressing her people.

[Late Tallest Greezee "negotiating" with one of the 7 queens of All-Hive.]

The treaty states that All-Hive is permanently under the Irken Armada's protection. In addition, every ruling tallest has to visit All-Hive at least 3 times every century, discuss important matters with the queens and renew the treaty. The renewal of set treaty involves accepting at least one of the seven Hymenopteracian queens as a permanent ally (life partner, politically speaking, though participating in the Hymenopteracian Queen's repopulation rituals is required to a certain extent. Some tallests are more receptiveto this tradition than others.) It's a very complicated and messy treaty. It could and probably SHOULD be revised to promote policies that better favor the indigenous people of All-Hive, but it was a step in the right direction and all too necessary to keep the empire running. *

***

In the present.

Since the ETF incident, All-Hive and several of its' moons were severely damaged. So, you know, crop failure, rising snack prices, limited supplies, ect. ect. The empire's economy almost instantly takes a nasty blow. Huge headache for the tallests in command.

Tallest Red and Purple had to visit All-Hive and their chosen Hymenopteracian queens almost immediately after the Massive was recovered from the Florpis Hole to keep the peace and make plans for repairs.

(Red with his chosen Queen)

Now that Red has passed, Purple is handling the situation alone. As the control brains have advised him, Purple is not shirking his duties on this one. The only thing that will definitely inspire the average drone to riot/ rebell is a lack of snacks, after all.

He swiftly sent a taraformation task force to repair the damage Zim did to All-Hive. Purple's chosen queen, Cerana, of whom he affectionately refers to as "Queenie", and her fellow queens were outraged by the damage initially and skeptical of Purple's intentions to fix anything at first, but she is satisfied with his progress thus far.

Purple and Queenie develope a close, genuine friendship outside of their obligated alliance, especially since Red's passing. Purple occasionally makes casual visits to All-Hive to chat with, snack with and dance with his chosen queen in between mandatory visits to All-Hive. (It's purely a platonic friendship; both Purple and Cerana lead very lonely lives.

2. Gir is... very devastated when Zim passes. It hits him so hard, he goes numb for a while.

There is a long lapse between when Zim dies and when Gir manages to recognize his grief. Many of his close friends and family worry for him, because he seems so accepting of Zim's death for a while and just operates on auto pilot. He carries on his frylord duties. He smiles and laughs and goofs like usual, but once the emotions finally process...

It all flows out in tidalwaves. Luckily he has Yeet and Minimoose to carry him through the worst of it.

[underground-archives]

Jabbagotdajuice via Spotify

Special Artist Spotlight: In Conversation with Jabbagotdajuice (Part 2/2)

Where we last left off, the Thirst Quencher rapper and I discussed the importance of preserving "the culture" in the face of hyper visibility and revisionism. Now, we've pivoted back to the topic of social media hate that all artists are inevitably doomed to endure in this hyper-digital age. Jabba has a few thoughts on the subject.

“When people go through their hate trains I’m like that's a good thing, because that just means their brains have never seen this before and they cannot comprehend this yet. Like it’s not digestible yet. Eventually it will be”

I reference another young rapper by the name of Cortisa Star (see our Artist Spotlight here) who was posted to an inflammatory rap blog (something of which there seems to be no shortage) that, on one hand, catapulted her to a new level of renown, but also caused her to receive an enormous amount of hate and vitriol, which must be psychologically taxing.

Jabba shared something very similar to what Chattanooga rapper Bbymutha said in the last U-A interview about how trolls intentionally leave hate comments to provoke artists because they really just want attention and they know that the artist will respond faster.

“Really they're just trying to poke you…It’s never really hate” 

I intend to ask Jabba how artists can stay grounded and deal with the hate, but she answers before I get to - you can tell it's something she has alerady put a lot of thought into.

“Staying grounded, it’s hard to do. But it’s kind of like you just gotta fight what you see…I’m still tryna figure it out.”

Jabba believes that, though easier said than done, artists should work on blocking out the hate and giving that attention to the love instead. It’s just hard to do because hate comments may trigger pre-existing insecurities they already have within themselves, and there is a tendency to internalize strangers' negative opinions even if you do have that support system to affirm you, because it's easy to believe that your friends will sugar coat the truth in order to protect your feelings.

To Jabba, the self-affirmation must come from within. She stresses the importance of saying affirmations and building that inner strength and confidence to help avoid internalizing the hate. She also sees a certain power in self-affirmation to the point of "delusion."

“Just be delusional. People who are delusional end up getting everything they want…All the delusional crazy people end up getting what they want!”

I ask Jabba if she thinks this idea of affirmations comes up at all in her music, and though she is not immediately able to think of an example, she says that she wants to be able to integrate that into the music more going forward. She cites Missy Elliott as an inspiration of hers that seemed to incorporate affirmations into her music, particularly in one album she couldn’t place - but she remembers the feeling. “As I listened to it, it’s full of things uplifting herself…telling herself things like ‘you’re that bitch’...When you’re singing it, that’s like affirmations - you’re singing it over and over,” she reminisces.

Though the rapper couldn’t pinpoint a moment like that in her own music, I remembered one line that stood out to me on her song “¡G33K3D!” (listen here) that I thought fit the bill: "Bitch without no Ls you can’t spell millions! "Jabba agrees.

“You can’t spell millions without Ls…and there’s two of em!” 

Jabba admits “¡G33K3D!” is the song she had the most fun making, and also possibly her most underrated one. The song is an ultra atmospheric, racing track with video game-y arpeggios and no shortage of punchy and sliding 808s. Jabba skates over the beat; the soft, almost haunting tone to her voice balancing out the busy instrumental. It’s hype, but hypnotic; definitely something you listen to while speeding down I-95 late at night. 

I ask Jabba to tell us about her mindset going into making the track. 

“I wanted it to be like a psychedelic feel,” she says, adding that she loves making that type of music, but that it is not necessarily the most popular with fans because of that tendency to put her in a box and expect one thing. For Jabba, that box seems to be the “rage” box, which she understands, but is also increasingly bored of.

“Do not put me in this box!”

“I am that aggressive person,” she says. “I am ragey, but I’m more than that. I’m trying to move past that. I don’t want to be known as, like, a rage artist or like, you know? ‘Cause I feel like I can make any type of music.” The rapper says she eventually wants to put out a whole tape of songs like “¡G33K3D!” and hints at the possibility of a video for the single in the near future.

On the topic of branching out, Jabba says she also wants to start making more “hyperpop” style music, like her recent feature on “#LA4X,” a bouncy techno-style party track by fellow Maryland artist Strawbalien. She also teases an unreleased song called “Betta” that she says will have a similar vibe. 

We continue to discuss this tendency to box artists in and draw clear lines between genres, when the reality is that there has always been some level of interaction between various scenes, and artists can’t be reduced to a singular moment or era, as Jabba likes to call it. 

I ask Jabba where she sees alternative hip hop going in the future, and she says it’s hard to say because it’s such a large umbrella already. She believes that’s the point of being alternative - being different from what’s out right now, so who can say what that might look like going forward?

I agree with her point, but I also mention that there would still be people out there willing to contest that definition, and that people often try to define a very specific, singular idea of what it means to be “alt."

The rapper nods, and adds that this idea of a singular concept of “alt” is an issue in the Black community as well, and that there is a tendency to write off anything "alt" as “white people shit," though this has definitely lessened over the years due to the widespread adoption of the "rockstar" aesthetics, particularly coming out of Atlanta and the DMV area. Perhaps Jabba will be the next one to carry the "alt" rap torch. 

The interview is coming to a close, and I only have a couple questions left for the Jabba today. The first one I ask is: if her music were her own genre, what would she call it?

“Uhh..” The rapper pauses to think. “I think I would call it transformative.”

She provides two different meanings for this answer. The first is that “You can’t box me in because I’m always changing” 

“Im always changing," she says. "It’s like chameleon music…It’s gonna always change with life.”

The second interpretation the rapper offers for the term transformative is that she considers her music to be something that causes change - maybe listeners connect with her too boost their self esteem (there goes that idea of affirmations again), or perhaps they connect with it because it's something they've never seen before. Either way, it's clear the Thirst Quencher wants to make an impact with her music.

Sad to be preparing to part ways, but feeling thoroughly enriched from this conversation with the up and coming rapper with the clown makeup, I ask my last question for the day:

"Any words of wisdom you would like to leave us with?"

“Any words of wisdom, any words of wisdom…” the rapper ponders. “I have two” (in typical gemini fashion, it seems the rapper has a habit of seeing things in twos).

Jabba's first answer is a motto of hers:

“Elevation requires separation.”

She elaborates, explaining how the phrase has two meanings, since it has changed for her over time. Initially, the motto referred to the artist’s need to isolate herself and “lock in.” Now, its meaning to her has more to do with separating herself from her ego. “It’s about yourself, your old ways” she says, “Taking yourself out your body to look at yourself from the outside…” 

The last piece of wisdom Jabba wishes to leave us with today is that our goals should always change. “You have to figure out what you're doing this for…or else you’re going to lose yourself and feel like you’ve reached your peak,” she muses. And what’s the fun in that?  

[granulesofsand]

Alter Race

or, more accurately,

the Ethnicities and Nationalities We Cannot Claim

🗝️🏷️ RAMCOA, death. This is about how we, as a white system, move with alters who hold an identity they shouldn’t (and a few we believe should). No one has to read this, but if you do and have a problem with it, we would appreciate your articulating it.

Blanks

We call unelaborated alters ‘blanks’ when they lack experience. They have room for more, but for some reason, they don’t have it yet. Usually this happens with newly formed alters, sometimes also with programmed or trauma-stuck folks.

And they are sponges for information. We get introjects like this, or people who don’t know they’ve never been something or someplace.

Maybe vs Not At All

We have Russian alters, but we don’t know which of them are maybe Russian (formed or elaborated in Russia as a culturally integrated member of a Russian community) and which are not at all Russian (made to think they were in Russia, elaborated by someone with a Russian accent, were fronting for a TV show with mimicked accents and scenes). We know there are some of each, but not who is who.

Degrees of Separation

🗝️🏷️ death in orange

We have poor representations of Mexican people from overexposure to actual people in and native to Mexico who were dangerous, and safe-enough representations of hispanic people from outerworld friends who were generations away from the last family member to set foot in Latin America.

We have BBC British alters who only saw humans on that channel. Others took accents from media where characters did not identify themselves as British, but whose actors were.

We have alters who think they were in Japan, but couldn’t have been given our life history. We have alters who think they are French or German but could not have even had contact with a person who truly was.

We have a few introjects of people who we didn’t know the origins of, but whose image we absorbed because we desperately wanted them to know a life outside of the horror they lived and died in.

False Impressions

We have people who were kept on islands where everyone spoke that language and acted according to the context they were given. We have lots of people whose given culture doesn’t exist, or hasn’t existed in any human’s lifetime. Some of those have been extinct so long, modern folk only know what they looked like by salvaged art we think was of a person in that community.

The worst are caricatures of identities our perps didn’t like, forced to look and act a certain way to enforce their view. Few of those alters choose to keep that appearance as they heal, and those that do make up a small portion of the alters who look similar. None of the recovered or untraumatized alters believe they can claim a racial or ethnic identity by internal features, and most never believed they could.

Fighting Shame

🗝️🏷️ RAMCOA in orange

And it’s hard not to be ashamed of them. The few who have malicious ideas about the culture they supposedly come from were taught to be like that through torture, the few that have misconceptions we lied to or only ever near a version of the culture that hurt them.

It’s not their fault, and they’re changing. The few problems we do run into with them feel huge, but they aren’t as bad as they seem. They would be better off growing without us balking at them.

They also need to go to therapy, even when they have obvious accents, even when those accents sound fake. They deserve access to literacy and expression. We think it would be healthier to let them exist as they are, and the ones who have problematic behaviors will learn from other insiders how to make their own informed decisions.

Making Change

We don’t want to have them loose, offending people or acting on false information. That’s why we teach them; not to force them to change, but because most of us want to once we have more context. Better context.

One thing we’re working on for those attached to their identity is elaboration. The ones with bad exposure get better experiences, the ones who got no exposure get both. If they won’t let go of what they consider themselves to be, we keep them inside so they can develop traditions and contexts that don’t belong to any external culture.

We group people by similar beliefs, introduce them and give them access to each other. They begin to form a mix that is nothing of the outside world. This is easy when we show them our internal functions, deities that exist in this form only here and magics that cannot be except as they use them.

We only allow an outerworld identity to be held after we’ve learned about that group’s open/closedness, and when we believe an alter has met the criteria established by that group for an outsider to become a member. Sometimes inside people have to change their labels to match what outside people say they can be, and we guide them there by showing them this information.

Harm reduction first, then we try to give habits that replace the ones we discourage. It’s hard and it’s embarrassing, but we do it because nothing changes without us changing it.

[kaieraai]

Day 4: Whitney Houston

In my last post, I spoke about how oppression removes resources and makes it more difficult for oppressed people to succeed. Now, I want to talk about black excellence, and how Whitney Houston's talent had powerful impacts on culture, broke down cultural barriers. Whitney Houston is one of the most awarded performers, and one of the best-selling artists of all time. Her talent is undeniable, and her popularity helped to influence culture and break down some racial and gender stereotypes that existed in culture, as well as the music industry.

Black excellence is important for us to recognize and celebrate, because it emphasizes that systemic oppression, rather than someone's talent, or ambition, is what holds people back from achieving. The narrative of systemic oppression is that work will yield success, and that failure to work is the only thing that leads to poverty, when in reality, the availability of resources is always far more important to ones ability to achieve. The hurdles one must jump through to be on the same playing field as others, and the good fortune needed for some people to even be recognized for their talents defines systemic and racial oppression. Ensuring that excellence is recognized, no matter the person's background, race, or identity helps break down the stereotypes of identities that face oppression, and enriches the cultural identity of a nation.

I think of this when I consider Whitney's performance of the Star Spangled Banner. Anyone who has gone to basically any sporting event has heard someone sing the national anthem to start off the game. I've heard a million people with mediocre talent struggle through the song, and I'm sure you have too. It makes you perk up when you really hear someone do the song justice, and it instills that pride that we should have in our country when we see people performing who represent the ideals and excellence we seek for our nation.

People of color deserve the opportunity to represent this nation much more than they are given the opportunity to. Although I think there is value in holding spaces that are exclusive to oppressed identities (but not those identities of the oppressors, let me be clear), there is power in the way our culture as a whole can be made more vibrant and richer when we allow more voices to be heard. We can see this dynamic in our government, where representatives are still predominantly white, predominantly male, but census show that they make choices for a diverse pool of constituents. Without diverse representations of our country, we cannot make choices that actually include and lift up the diverse identities of our nation, we aren’t getting a good representation, that's not the whole picture.

I hope that today's entry encourages you to step out of the box of people who look and sound like you, and appreciate the talent and arts of those whose lives, identities, or backgrounds don't look like yours. They are your neighbors too, they are a part of your culture, as an American. Your life, and mine as well, are made richer by embracing the views, ideas, and talents of people unlike ourselves. I take pride in that, and I hope you do too.