Latest Posts by pinkflipphonez - Page 3
May 5 is the Day of Awareness for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, and Two-Spirit People. (Also known as Red Dress Day.)
Show your support and pass on your strength by wearing red on May 5, and raising awareness. And if you have never read the Reclaiming Power and Place report, you can do so here.
Additionally, while the day is typically centred in Turtle Island, let us also not forget our international cousins, especially in Palestine and Sudan.
I feel like in the rusame club, rus' best attributes are thrown to the wayside. as an AMERICAN [EAGLE SCREECH] rusame enjoyer,,, I am here to set the record straight. here are the many hc's I've got on Al's admirations of Ivan:
he is so well-read. russian lit is truly a genre of its own, and Ivan got his writing talents from it. he could write a poem about dirt and make someone cry. while he is a reserved and intimidating person face-to-face, he can write everything he feels and sees so stunningly and concisely. I hc that during the height of their initial alliance (1850s-1900s) he would write Al letters about his day, how much he enjoyed seeing him last, about what he liked about him, and about how much he cares for him (he kept them all).
he will spend weeks, months, making something for the people he loves because it's fun to him, especially because he includes the little details. that one time in 1887 when they walked along the Sochi shore and found a rock that resembled Alfred's eyes (that he later lost)? well he looked all over Sochi beach and found another one just like it and made Al a ring with it. why? just because!
his appearance. man, if Alfred wasn't so prideful, he'd tell Ivan straightforwardly just how attractive he is and how attracted he is to him (he absolutely talks his ear off abt it when he's shtfaced lol). he is tall, broad, ethereally pallid- his skin is calloused and scarred in such a lovely way. he sees it as his skin being struck by lightning. his hair is light and soft in a way unachievable even by the best hair care. just looking at the man gives him frisson (and deep within his mind he feels others see it too, the jealous baby).
his hands
his nose. it's such a beautiful inheritance passed down from his first peoples to him, and Ivan wears it well. it makes him look all the more regal, and as an ndn man, Alfred sees large noses as a symbol of power. also, what doja cat said-
he's a damn-good dancer. waltz, paso doble, troika, but soviet tango guys- seriously, soviet tango.
elizabeth taylor eyes
he is a goddamn chef. pirozhkis, stroganoff, shchi- SCRUMPTIOUS. "hey, we're having a potluck and braginsky didn't bring anything again-" IT'S CAUSE AJ STASHED IVAN'S TRAY IN HIS CAR AGAIN
his sweaters (he's stolen approximately 122 sweaters from him and counting- ivan now hides his clothes when he visits)
okay... what if we compromise... and say alfred jones is indeed an east coaster... BUT he was born on the west coast? yes or yes?
• kingman, az
the trip back home was just as fun as the trip itself. buying $1 scratch-offs, a pretty big drink, and beef jerky: the best american experience.
• albuquerque, nm
gathering of nations was a surreal experience. I don't think I've been around so many other natives in my life, and that includes northern and aboriginal natives! it is an unforgettable experience. also knowing I was in the same room as northern cree and young spirit makes me fangirl embarrassingly.
“….It is not fit that such great warriers should fight anymore, but that they should remain like women who were not warriers…. treaty is held sacred all this time and they say it will until the party that put the coat onto them shall take it off, or break the treaty.” - Thayendanegea to Holmes 1801 regarding the Haudenosaunee-Lenape Peace of 1669.
This is just a quick little drawing of “Sara”/Min-asin-ink/ Munsee Lenape & her sister Wënami/ Unami Lenape around the time of this peace treaty.
Indigenous histories is something I’m trying to understand more as its own separate history of US & Canadian canon. And as my main focus has always been New York City, and given that “Sara” is Lynn/NYC’s biological mother, I was curious as to what happens to her following the theft of her lands with the founding of New Netherlands. Lynn is also a lot like her mother. Sara is a bit of busy body, a bit nosy, but very charming and she has a way with words- historically allows her to make good deals and treaties what have you. Lynn is also like this except Lynn is probably the poster child of girlboss capitalism 😔 Lynn is like monopoly woman. Also “Sara”’s sister Wënami is Luke/Philadelphia’s mom.
The tl:dr on Lynn’s relationship to her mother is: it’s rocky. I think they both love each other. But Lynn has spent much of her time as a settler personification and has adopted very different values than her mother’s values. So sometimes they, but more so Lynn, get on each other’s bad side. Also both are quite stubborn
I plan on expanding further and making proper designs and lore for other nations, but my main focus is settler-colonial history. I want to eventually discuss the events of Tecumseh’s War against the United States because it’s a pivotal moment in settler and indigenous histories but we never fully discuss the Indigenous sides of it. So I’m trying to learn more about each nation outside of their relationship to settler-colonial powers hence why I also focused on the great peace of 1669.
Info dump below the cut
Also I want to quickly note that the Lenape were made of several different groups prior to colonization, and could be broken culturally into Munsee and Unami, but this changes with colonization. I assume “Sara” & her sister are the youngest the Lenape personifications given that they represent the broader groups.
Historically, it was like highkey the Haudenosaunee Confederacy versus everyone and their mother. But in 1669 the Lenape along with the Mohicans brokered a peace deal with the Haudenosaunee. This treaty in effect by calling the lenape women gave them a nation status of being peace makers and also gave them neutrality within international conflict.
This status explains a lot about how “Sara” and her sister were able to survive but also why they later align themselves with the Haudenosaunee, or the Cherokee or why they were involved in Tecumseh’s war.
• pueblo acoma, nm
on our way to albuquerque, we were able to tour the beautiful sky city in the mesa! acoma natives have lived in the mesa for over 2000 years. I'm still so amazed by that.
after not seeing much of each other (or the best of each other) in the 50s-60s, I'd like to think that alfred and ivan enjoy exploring musical media of that era together in modern day. for example, alfred loves to show ivan how to dance the twist and ivan will share his x-ray record collection of contraband music with him.
ivan won't let him know that he's been to a maya kristalinskaya concert or two and he's already learned the dance. alfred won't let him know that he owns multiple muslim magomayev lps and once snuck past the iron curtain to hear vladimir troshin live.
God I am sick and tired of people uwu-washing indigenous American history.
Did the Inca have exquisite building techniques, efficient messengers, and quality waterworks? Yes. They were also an expansionist empire built on violent conquest and the splitting up and relocating of conquered peoples.
Did the Aztecs have a gorgeous capital city built at the heart of a lake, with floating farms and towering temples honoring their fascinating pantheon? Yes. Guess what tho. They were also a violent expansionist empire who practiced ritual sacrifice of prisoners of war.
The Iroquois confederacy had one of the most unique representative political systems I’ve ever heard of, with women taking a forefront in most local government matters too. But their internal peace allowed them to redirect violence to their neighbors, as so often happens with tribal confederations, and they eventually violently conquered the Ohio valley and destroyed or displaced dozens of other indigenous groups.
Even my beloved Cahokia has the graves of sacrifice victims amidst its ruins.
A society should not need to be (and fundamentally cannot be) squeaky clean unproblematically stannable in order to be worth studying and remembering, and pretending that they were is no less disinformative than the European accounts painting them as godless savages.
I have no idea how someone could be as ignorant as you are being right now. You have a myriad of resources to find that anti-Muslim sentiment is why this genocide is permiating, and yet you choose to live in your hateful ignorance. It is pointless to argue and thoroughly explain to you the suffering of people when you seldom see them as people, so I am truly wasting no more energy on you.
If you want to talk about anti-gay sentiments in religion, I can tell you right now that damn near every religion revolving around Jesus of Nazareth is conservative at heart. As for anti-gay murders-- every single one of those deaths are done by terrorist groups NOT affiliated with Palestine or any major Muslim denomination!
And I am sorry-- are you, as someone from Russia, telling me how brutal other people's cultures are to gay people? Your government is majorly Orthodox Christian. Under that same religion, they have committed various crimes of gay purging in Chechnya where thousands of people have been brutally tortured and killed, all for the sake of God and sanctity! Will you condemn Christians for this? Will you condemn Christianity for the rise of nationalism and fascism?
Вы не человек веры, вы просто человек, охваченный чувством вины, который использует прекрасную веру, чтобы замаскировать свою уродливую, пагубную ненависть, и поверьте мне, это приведет к вашей собственной гибели.
Children are being killed by Isr*el but ok. There's video evidence everywhere but ok.
Also Palestinian jews exist too, and actual H*locaust survivors are protesting what Isr*el is doing to the Palestinians.
Didn't know saying "Killing innocent civilians, especially children, is horrible and there should be permanent ceasefire" was so controversial but ok.
goodnight everyone (:
do your daily click
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when alfred and ivan visit each other, the standard gifts (or more like payment) is american cigarettes for russian vodka. nothing more nothing less. also american doritos, bcuz ame made rus try eating caviar with them and he's been shamefully hooked since
the biggest reason why I feel so anchored to rusame is the (theorized) love story. the grueling background of their romance. the way they went from friends, to lovers, to enemies, to friends again, to... who knows? (I'm mostly going off fanon rusame and the more widely shared hcs I've seen)
forget about the cold war--I love to think of how in love they were before the patriotic war.
all the letters they wrote one another, the gifts they made for each other; a painted picture of their eye in a locket, a portrait etched onto a lacquer box. photographs, poems, postcards. a pure love story. then it went away. then having to ignore this gnawing feeling of missing each other, of yearning each other. having to replace such a fiery love with hatred in the blink of an eye.
then that hatred gradually dissipates to become... more longing, more yearning. they wouldn't call it love (I think) but that intense, agonizing emotion for each other is always there and it's exclusive to them. them caring so little for each other and yet so much is so beautiful, so saddening, so incredible. they are my favorite love story you could say????
we don't talk about braiding someone's hair as a love language nearly often enough
evening with my gal pal @ bolshoi theatre! ignore the kissing noises coming from the mezzanine
art practice w my fave sag award winners + their marvelous dresses
Roderich is often troubled by the many beaus of his that plague his mind
Could we know your fav ships :3 ?
hello! of course! I would say my favorites are:
russia x america ofc!!
india x china
france x england
cuba x canada
canada x ukraine
and I'm sure a few more I'm forgetting, but these are the ones that take up my mind often. I don't draw half of these ships enough though and I'll be sure to change that soon!
Since today is clean water day, remember that 1/3 of the Navajo Nation doesn't have access to clean water. I personally have donated, and I encourage anyone else with available funds to do the same.
Hey, so as a person who has in my unpublished works a story wherein APH Greenland is minorly featured, after I saw your post complaining about Greenland's current characterisation in fanworks, I realised that my story 100% fits all the things you were complaining about. And if it's not too much trouble how would you characterise Greenland in a way that is less problematic?
Or do you have any reccomendations for resources I can use to educate myself about Greenlandic culture?
So, I will preface this with the following:
I AM NOT INDIGENOUS. I AM NOT INUK. YOU SHOULD GO ASK SOMEONE INDIGENOUS OR BETTER YET, SOMEONE WHO IS GREENLANDIC INUIT.
However, in this post, I will primarily give some guidelines that are generally applicable to any nation personification of color that has experienced colonialism/imperialism by a Western nation and is still dealing with its legacy. Keep in mind that what you're asking for is a lot, however- we're touching on topics of national anthropomorphizations in political cartoons, the depiction of the colonized, particularly the indigenous, and the relationship between the colonized and the colonizer.
Don't make Greenland America and Canada's relative.
Don't make Greenland Denmark's kid, biological or otherwise.
Don't use sensitive contemporary issues in Greenland for fandom content.
Don't Make Greenland America and Canada's Relative
Every time I've seen this come up, this is usually justified one of two ways-
a) Greenland is related to America and Canada because the Vikings set up the first European settlements in continental North America, so they would be related via their Norse heritage. b) Greenland is related to America and Canada because America and Canada have a native parent, and Greenland is a sibling of that native parent.
To head things off- The first one is bad. See my next section for the issues of making Greenland a child of the Nordics/Nordic ancestors.
The second one almost always carries the implication of that the native parent of America and Canada is some kind of nebulous pan-American "APH Native America" personification; the issues with having the many indigenous peoples of the Americas as similar and interchangeable enough to warrant only one personification to represent them all are obvious, I should hope.
The slightly more plausible alternative is that America and Canada's native parent represents some Inuit group, and through that, Greenland is their sibling. Even if more plausible, we run into the same issue of turning a group into a monolith- there are many different Inuit groups, all with their own unique histories and cultures. Though Inuit groups may be more related than all Indigenous Americans to each other, they are still not a monolith, and determining their relationships to each other shouldn't be resolved with a blanket solution of "they're all related, nuff said."
If we want to dig into the weeds of historical accuracy, it makes no sense for America to have Inuit heritage, seeing as the United States began as the Thirteen Colonies in the Eastern Seaboard of the modern United States which doesn't overlap with the traditional lands of the Inuit. The Alaska Purchase was not made until 1867, hundreds of years after the establishment of the Thirteen Colonies.
I would also like to point out another issue I’ve seen with many “Auntie/Uncle Greenland depictions” in the fandom. Whenever you do see such depictions of Greenland in the fandom, almost never do we see the creator of such interpretations shedding light on any other indigenous characters (particularly ones not related to the USA and Canada). Therefore, such depictions are exceptionalizing and exalting an indigenous character above all other indigenous characters because they have more of a connection to major Western countries.
Overall summary: The primary issue with making Greenland related to America and Canada is that Greenland is never allowed to exist outside of their links to these two. If you want to depict Greenland with respect, the most basic thing you can do is to not reduce Greenland into a tool for you to better characterize America and Canada and flesh out their background.
Don't make Greenland Denmark's Child, Biological or Otherwise
TW: racist caricatures of black, Latino, Native American, and Asian people
So first some quick historical background: Norse settlement of Greenland began around the 900s-1100s and died out sometime between 1450 and 1500 due to a variety of environmental and sociopolitical reasons. The surviving Norse settlers most likely either left or assimilated with the local Inuit populations, so there is some genetic legacy, but 85-90% of the population of Greenland today considers themselves Greenlandic Inuit.
For the following centuries, there were sporadic interactions between European whalers and the local Inuit. It was only until 1721 that another attempt at colonization was made, this time by the missionary Hans Egede, who founded a trading company and Lutheran mission near present day Nuuk, with the express permission of the Kingdom of Denmark-Norway.
Greenland took on a special status in both Danish policy and imagination, a far-off land that was "vulnerable" to other nation's influences and in need of Danish protection. In line with that thinking, the Danish state held an exclusive monopoly on Greenland's resources and all trade with Greenlanders. It pressured Greenlandic Inuit to stay in their occupations of hunting and fishing so that Denmark could maintain access to resources Greenland provided, mainly animal products from local wildlife the Inuit hunted.
Additionally, the Danish also tightly regulated interactions between the Danish colonial population and the local Inuits. For a time, intermarriage was strictly controlled, limited to only Danish men and Greenlandic women of mixed descent and had to be approved by the colonial administration. When the US wanted to build military bases on Greenland for military purposes during WW2, a major concern of Greenlandic authorities was minimizing contact between the US soldiers and the local Inuits.
Of course, Greenland didn’t stay this way forever. Against Denmark’s wishes, Greenland did open up and become further integrated into the global economy and order of nations, and to this day a lot of Greenlanders have a Danish ancestor somewhere in their family tree.
However, to make Greenland (substantially) related to the Norse is to do a disservice to the hundreds of years of Greenlandic Inuit culture that already existed and then continued to thrive for hundreds of years in the absence of continued Nordic contact and influence. It implies that the ethnogenesis of the Greenlandic Inuit was kicked off by the Norse settlers, when in reality, the Greenlandic Inuit are largely descended from the native Thule people and later waves of migration of other Inuit people from modern day Nunavut and Nunavik. To make Greenland the child of Denmark is worse, and stands in stark contrast to the fact that compared to other nations and their settler colonies (think, England and America), Denmark heavily controlled Danish migration to Greenland and wanted to keep Greenland isolated and contained.
Now, moving past the issue of historical accuracy, there's been a long history in political cartoons starring national anthropomorphizations of allegorizing international relationships as familial relationships, or "mentor-mentee" relationships, especially when it comes to colonizer-colony relationships.
REPORT FROM THE FILIPINES Send more soldiers -Otis Uncle Sam: Balm in Gilead! Well, thank heavens both my new daughters haven't got the same disposition.
'School Begins', cartoon of Uncle Sam teaching a class in civilisation to pupils labelled 'Philippines', 'Hawaii', 'Porto Rico' and 'Cuba'
In these cartoons, the colonized is portrayed as child-like, infantile, in need of the US's benevolent guidance to be "civilized." After all, if the relationship between the colonizer and its colonial possessions was like that of a parent and their children (or a teacher and their students)- well, children need their parents, so therefore, the colonies need the colonizer and its guidance, right? By doing so, it portrays the relationship between the colonizer and its colonies as a necessary, benevolent one, one done for the benefit of the colony, and masks the inherently exploitative, unequal nature of colonialism.
To make Denmark a parental influence on Greenland, then, is to replicate the same paternalistic attitude Denmark took to Greenland as a colonial possession in need of guidance and direction, and possibly whitewashing the toll Danish colonization has taken on Greenland. Even depictions of Denmark and Greenland that emphasize their “little brother/big brother” relationship are problematic, because they fall into the same colonial rhetoric of Greenland "needing" Denmark's civilizing guidance.
Moreover, sensitivity is another concern for depictions of Greenland. At the risk of speaking for groups I do not belong to, having a child Greenland be raised by Denmark and the other Nordics (esp if Greenland has a negative relationship w them) hews a little too closely to the real life kidnapping of Indigenous children from their families to be raised instead by white families, in an attempt to remove them from their heritage and culture. Unless you're actually Greenlandic Inuit or indigenous, I don't think this is your story to tell.
Don't Use Sensitive Contemporary Issues in Greenland for Fandom Content
Don't use sensitive contemporary issues for fandom content, especially as an outsider. Don't be like the person I saw making angst headcanons around Greenland's high suicide rate.
---
Recommended Reading
This video is a great introduction to Danish colonization of Greenland, and how I began my dive into Greenlandic history. Bear in mind that this is a 25 minute long video, so it's compressing a lot, but it's a jumping off point, not the end-all be all. Content warnings should be in the beginning of the video.
Phasing out the Colonial Status of Greenland by Erik Beukel
This is a report commissioned by the Danish government and Greenlandic Home Rule analyzing the period between 1945 and 1954, where Greenland's status was changed from that of a colony to an equal part of the Kingdom of Denmark. It's a series of political science essays looking at this period, but I found Chapter 2 the most useful, as it provides an overview of the relevant historical background factors in the relationship between Greenland and Denmark. Warning for some dated language (mostly because it uses Esk*mo at certain points) but otherwise there's not really any content warnings.
Worldviews of the Greenlanders: An Inuit Arctic Perspective by Brigitte Sonne
I haven't fully read this book so I can't totally vouch for this, but given the difficulty of accessing academic material of Greenland (especially as someone who doesn't speak or read Danish), this does fill in some much needed gaps in perspectives on Greenland. I realize the inherent problems of needing to read about Inuit perspectives in a book compiled by an outsider academic as well as the issues with the field of ethnography as a whole, but this may still be useful to some!
Articles I enjoyed that look at Greenlandic history and contemporary issues:
The Arctic Suicides: It's Not the Dark that Kills you
A Brief History of the Indignities Heaped Upon Greenland
How a failed social experiment in Denmark separated Inuit children from their families
some 1950s pruaus lovin
I'd like to think that we ruled the world for a short moment in time.
femslash february day 1: POWER
Talking about girl indchu btw :3
https://www.tumblr.com/luyous/742633098582409216/pani-puri
Also!! Absolutely can’t wait to see your indchu piece 🥺!! It looks so good- I’ve literally been checking on your account at least once every hour VJHB
indchu anon, mi amorcito!!! thank you so much, I am so humbled to know you're looking out and I promise she's almost complete!! prolly done by early monday knowing me lmao 😭
but dude, I... [bites my fist] please, I'm so far gone and this just grabbed me by my sapphic ass neck and CHOKED ME
it was magnificent. the way that author described the suffocating room, the uncomfortability. then the way they immediately just devour each other. biting, blood, gripping, pulling in-- god I'm just such a slut for their dynamic... CURSE YOU ANON!!!