零 (ling)/30s (THEY/THEM/佢)
art tag: #a pile of bread
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i love looking at sketches and every “imperfect” line in it theres so much character and movement, and really when youre linearting you shouldnt be tracing your sketch you should be REDRAWING it with all the controlled but carefree movement you would have put into the undersketch

Anonymous sent
Hi Violet! If you're up for it, would you mind giving us some insight into Gin's speech patterns? I don't know Japanese, but in the anime, I can tell that his language is kind of crude, but I don't know the specifics. I just think it might reveal some more about his character. I hope I'm not being presumptuous by asking...

o that’s a good question actually, I don’t know if I could answer adequately though. Gin-chan’s speech is really plain, straightforward and casual - well, basically how (simple) men in daily life speak. I don’t know if you could call it crude, but it could be something near it - it’s just completely casual and he usually doesn’t bother to switch for a politer tone even with strangers or people who are of higher status(with a few exceptions), thing that is usually kinda frowned upon - I guess you could say it speaks about him being laid-back and a little rude(for example, Hijikata, who shares his speech patterns, does switch to politer speech from time to time with strangers). Gin-chan does switch to politer language when he’s talking to the creatures he’s afraid of(ghosts, sometimes Tae, drunk Tsukuyo) and as I remember when he’s trying to mock/criticize other people but I might be wrong. 

for the record since we’re talking about speech patterns - Tama always speaks in a very polite manner and I don’t remember her ever breaking character, Kagura’s ‘Chinese accent’ atributes are, besides ‘aru’, ‘ne’ and ‘yo’(frequent and often random; these are actually the ‘Chinese accent’ words that are stereotypical, not the ‘aru’) but in rest she pretty much picks up her speech patterns from Gin-chan(whose are not really suitable for a teen girl lmao) and she breaks character quite often - each time it’s hilarious because it’s really emphasized, Shinpachi usually talks in a polite manner(as I remember one step lower polite than Tama) typical for youghts from high-put families, or just exigent&serious young men and in the episode in which Gin-chan and Sadaharu switch bodies you can see how Gin-chan is shocked at Shinpachi telling him to clean up after him himself in tameguchi bc it’s so untypical for him; Tae’s speech is really mild and lady-like(and I think this plays a big role in her character). Tsukuyo usually speaks in a manner typical for prostitutes/working men from the lowest classes(actually the other day I mentioned the pronoun ‘wacchi’ to a Japanese person and they kinda laughed it off and said it’s something quite rare to hear) but when she gets drunk she starts speaking in standard Japanese - I have no idea why; Sakamoto, Mutsu and Kada are speaking in Tosa-ben, and this dialect is usually used to show ‘different’ people in anime, but Mutsu admitted that she picked it up from him - before she was talking in standard Japanese too; I can remember only Katsuo and for some reason all the geishas/cabaret girls who fancied Hijikata talking in Kansai-ben which is kinda weird since it’s a frequently used pattern in animanga too - actually in the popularity poll arc you can see Tae switch to Kansai-ben too to emphasize her badassery(since it’s often used for gangsters - see Katsuo); Sougo’s speech is plain standard Japanese but he has a couple of quirks to emphasize his childishness I guess(I could be wrong), Zura usually speaks in an old, samurai-like manner to emphasize his traditionalism and oldness overall. I think Kyuubei’s is similar but not the same but I can’t tell for sure, I don’t remember, Matako’s and Tetsunosuke’s speech patterns are of gofers/simple uneducated people(usually, not neccessarily though), Jirocho and Seita are something similar but in a different way, Gedomaru and Kuriko also have speech quirks I am not educated enough to explain; in rest everyone is speaking normally but I don’t remember exactly to say for sure.

you’re right saying that the way a character speaks reveals more about them, especially in Gintama where Sorachi uses the language to convey and tell as much stuff as possible. Sorry for barely answering your question and turning it into an unrelated longass rant orz

i associate you with: 1. sleepy-eyed white-haired douchebags. gintoki/ginko/kakashi obviously, but at this point when i think of a grown-up kaworu it is in your art style. 2. a glass of water with some lemon slices?? not sure why. thin cross-sections, not wedges, in a clear glass with ice. i could be thirsty but i've thought this before. am i dehydrated? who cares 3. the aural memory of gintoki's voice actor saying "naze? nan de? why?" 4. the 8traks logo 5. drawing & blogging & good times

wow i left this for a long time

  1. raises up the unholy trio like a triforce and then tosses them out the window (is kaworu not human. hes not right. bc if hes not i am maybe 3x more interested in him)
  2. im so-so about lemons in water but im digging the color scheme
  3. i heard that line before i even saw that episode and i laughed for so long for god knows why, then i saw the episode and still laughed, but uncomfortably bc laughing at that point was mildly inappropriate imo
  4. jojo poses in front of it
  5. whats better than this
Anonymous sent
Hi! I'm sorry to bother, but I have a question. I have a friend who looks white (blonde, light skin, green eyes) but was actually born and raised in India by her Hindu parents. She practices Hinduism and only recently moved to the states. She still wears traditional clothing, but the other day she posted a picture of herself in her traditional clothes and got a lot of hate for it, people saying it was cultural appropriation. She's bummed out about it and is now questioning her ethnicity. Help?

1. All those people screaming cultural appropriation at her are ignoramuses who are basically saying, “Wow, you don’t look like my ill-informed, narrow-minded stereotype of what people from this region actually look like!” and “I actually subscribe to horrible, reductionist stereotypes that Indian people can only have dark hair, skin and eyes. Light hair? Green eyes? European (origin) only!” 

This is gonna be a tad long, because it’s gonna delve into biology and history- and it’s because I hope people realise how artificial the US paradigm of race is. It’s woefully incompetent at understanding the biological diversity of our species because it is a social construct. Modern scientists and historians generally refuse to categorise people on the amount of melanin they have because it’s just reductionist and oversimplistic- what they do is classify people by their geographic origin, linguistic and cultural ties. 

2. India is an EXTREMELY diverse continent. It’s so genetically diverse that the only place more genetically diverse is the African continent, aka, the birthplace of humanity. And this is a big deal. I’ll explain why.

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Surprise! People inhabiting an extremely large country that has more than 2000 ethnic groups, members of all the world’s religions, been the site of multiple ancient civilisations, been on the major crossroads of human migration and trade for thousands of years come in multiple colours!

  • Presently, the most widely-accepted theory of our origins is the Recent African Origin, or Out of Africa TheoryThis holds that originally, humans first appeared in Africa, thus all of us have African ancestors. All modern non-Africans are descended from much smaller groups of people who migrated out of Africa, anytime from 65,000 to 125,000 years ago. How do scientists know this? By looking at our DNA, in addition to fossil and archaeological records. They discovered that the differences in the DNA of non-African peoples like say, a German a Japanese and a New Zealand Maori was far less than the genetic differences between people from different African ethnic groups. (Somali, Dinka, Yoruba, San, Kikuyu, Luo etc- I’m BARELY scratching the surface)
  • What this meant was that Africa had to be the original, diverse genetic pool where modern humans first appeared. Everybody else outside of Africa today is descended from much smaller groups of people who left Africa at various times- and that ancestral genetic “bottleneck” is why people who appear to have very different heritage (e.g European vs East Asian) actually have far less genetic variation than the various African peoples.
  • So, India being the second most genetically diverse place on this planet is a big deal- it’s basically second only to THE CRADLE OF HUMANITY. That’s why I’m pretty convinced your friend can have blonde hair and green eyes and still be 100% Made in India.

3. Now, the genetics of India itself.

Genetic studies have shown that if you take a modern Indian from any part of India, no matter how dark or fair they are, his or her lineage will consist of mixing from two main ancestral groups. One is the Ancestral Northern Indians (ANI), and the other the Ancestral Southern Indians (ASI). You may have heard of the ancient Indian caste system which put a lot of social pressure that prohibited marrying outside your caste. Caste discrimination is banned today, but old attitudes do persist. However, even this caste rigidity wasn’t so 4000- 2000 years ago. ANI people married ASI pretty freely, so that’s why every modern Indian has heredity from both groups. So, already to start off, you got quite a fair bit of diversity hidden in people’s genes. 

  • And the next interesting part to explain why it IS possible for Indians to have features stereotyped as “European” is because while the ASI seemed to be genetically unique to the Indian subcontinent, the ANI people are genetically related to Middle-Easterns, Europeans and Caucasians (and I mean this not in the sense of “white” as often used in the US, but the actual region of Caucasus, which borders Europe and Asia).
  • You mentioned she looks “white”- and the American-understanding of “white” being hurled at her by those people screaming cultural appropriation are actually ignorantly treating “white” as synonymous with “European-origin”. In reality, it’s completely useless in the realm of biology. Biologically, there is actually no real dichotomy where “European” suddenly ends and “Asia” begins. 

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  • As I earlier pointed out, well, we’re all kinda related. And it’s not at all earth-shattering that some people from India look like they’re of “European-origin”. Because modern Europeans, Central Asians and the Ancestral Northern Indians are all believed to be descendants of a group of people called the Proto-Indo-Europeans. It’s believed they lived around 6000-7000 years ago. Some modern people that are descended from the Proto-Indo-Europeans are French, Germans, Iranians and Pashtuns (a major ethnic group in Afghanistan).  It’s even been found that Europeans and Indians shared a gene for fair skin from a common ancestor- which is why there ARE people who look like your friend. Naturally, fair skin is just relatively rarer in India vs Europe because more parts of India are located in hotter regions. Therefore, there’s more selection pressure for darker skin which has more melanin to protect from the sun- making fair skin rarer, but still possible. 

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(This is a map of the Kurgan Hypothesis, which is currently the most popular theory for how the Proto-Indo-Europeans migrated from their homeland to settle Europe, Central Asia, Iran, India and Turkey etc)

  • Saying Indians are descendants of the Proto-Indo-Europeans is NOT the same as saying they’re of “European origin”. For example, think of the Proto-Indo-Europeans as like the “mother” of Europeans, Central Asians and the Ancestral Northern Indians- they’re like “sibling” groups, not descendants. The original Indo-Europeans were not “European” in the modern sense. I am clarifying this because plenty of colonial-era scientific racism tried to attribute ancient India’s achievements to “European who left Europe for India”- you might have heard the phrase “Aryan” thrown around in Nazi Germany, which was used to mean “blonde hair, blue eyes”. Nazi scientists and historians also abused it to explain away the sophistication of non-European civilisations in Ancient Egypt and India. In reality, ”Aryan” is derived from the ancient Sanskrit word “Arya“ which means "noble”. Sanskrit is an ancient language still used in classical Indian texts, and is of Proto-Indo-European origin. For example, the name of the country “Iran” actually means “land of the Aryans”- it was the names ancient Iranians (another people descended from the Proto-Indo-Europeans) gave to what others called the Persian Empire for more than a thousand years before the Third Reich. 

image(Sanskrit manuscript)

  • Furthermore, many languages we often separate as “European” and “Asian” like German, English, French, Italian vs. Hindi, Farsi (Persian), Gujarati, Punjabi, Pashto, Sanskrit etc are ALL classified by linguists as belonging to the same Indo-European language family- which all evolved from the original language the Proto-Indo-Europeans spoke. See how artificial the Europe/Asia dichotomy really is, in terms of human genetics and origin of cultures? 

4. Finally- there’s plenty of modern proof that the region we call Europe today does NOT have a monopoly on producing people with blonde hair, fair skin and green eyes.

This is Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, a popular Indian Bollywood actress who is also known for her striking blue-green eyes. She’s 100% Indian- she was born in Mangalore, India to Indian parents. 

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This is a couple at their wedding- the lady on the left is Indian, from the Southern Indian city of Hyderabad. Her husband is Ethiopian.image

This is a photo of a boy and a woman who is likely his mother, taken in Turkey.

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This is a girl from Darfur, Sudan- an area that has more than 30 ethnic groups.

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This is a Nuristani girl. The Nuristani people are an ethnic group from Afghanistan. 

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5. And in the first place, what makes up a person’s identity IS NOT JUST HOW MUCH or HOW LITTLE MELANIN THEY HAVE.

  • Tell your friend she is 100% Indian, because what makes up her identity is not just how she looks. Identity is what feels most natural to her, and if that identity is indeed very intertwined with major aspects of Indian culture- then well, she IS Indian and noone can say otherwise. 
  • Those people had no right to make her feel awful and “not-Indian enough” because it’s clear she identifies as such due to actually being born there and also practising major aspects of Indian culture. The best example I can think of to explain this is how in the US, people sometimes use the term “Latino” as a race category, with the stereotype that all latinos must have tanned skin and dark hair. In reality, it’s more of a cultural identity. The are fair haired-latinos and darker-skinned latinos whose ancestors included the African slaves brought to the Americas four hundred years ago. But what really makes them “Latino” or “Hispanic” is their upbringing- growing up in the environment of Latin America, which is culturally a syncretic fusion of Amerindian, African, Spanish, Portuguese and other European influences. 

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(This is the Brazilian football team that won the 1970 World Cup- you can see Pelé- second from the bottom right. He is an Afro-Brazilian. If you look at his teammates, you can see how latinos come in ALL COLOURS.)

6. Your friend should not be questioning her identity, but those people attacking her should be questioning their utterly myopic worldview. The history of human genetics and migrations makes it abundantly clear how DIVERSE India is- so it’s perfectly possible for her to be Indian but have blonde hair and green eyes, even if it may be less common. 

7. On a more general note, I cannot stress this enough to everyone- DO NOT GO AROUND ATTACKING PEOPLE for “cultural appropriation” when you are NOT even from that culture in question and/or don’t actually know in detail the history and genetics of that region.

  • If you suspect cultural appropriation: DO YOUR RESEARCH FIRST or ASK SOMEBODY you know who actually belongs to that group. You may be attacking mixed-race people or people like the anon’s friend, who simply has features that are less genetically dominant- blonde hair shows up less easily in countries with a bigger pool of people with dark hair because dark hair is dominant. Even if her parents had dark hair, it’s possible they both carried a recessive gene for blonde hair that was suppressed by their dark-hair gene. Their child would be blonde if she happened to get both copies of the blonde gene instead of the dark hair gene.
  • Also, even if you think the person isn’t of that group, please bear in mind they might have been invited to dress in that clothing by a friend, or because they’re at an event. (I.e let’s say, at an Indian wedding)
  • I can’t stress how infuriating this “white knight” complex is. Speaking as someone pretty familiar with colonialism, I’ve had people who didn’t grow up in my culture condescendingly insist that if I’m okay with somebody doing something from my culture, it’s “self-internalised oppression”. I’ve studied African colonial literature, and the way people insist on defining what people should be alright with is very reminiscent of 19th century imperialists high-handedly saying, “oh, we have to bring the light of civilisation to save those backwards colonial subjects from themselves!”

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This is Reese Witherspoon, wearing a kimono in Japan, where she is being taught by JAPANESE people how to perform the traditional tea ceremony. This is not reducing a culture to a caricature because she’s actually learning stuff respectfully and wearing a bona fide kimono.

  • Fighting against cultural appropriation is to prevent cultures from being cheapened, made into jokes, sexual fetishes or ugly caricatures. Part of returning power to people to define themselves is ALSO by allowing them to set the parameters of what they want to share with others- and many cultures are perfectly willing to share aspects that are non-sacred or do not have to be earned. So, for example, do not go around insisting a Japanese person should not be allowed to teach non-Japanese people to wear a kimono- because a kimono, unlike a Navajo war bonnet (akin to veteran’s medals), is something anybody can wear. Recognise this difference.
tryitinheels

if you’re not jewish, kabbalah is not for you.

you are not allowed to read about it. you are not allowed to wear red bracelets. you are not allowed to practice it or think it’s cool and mystical.

you are allowed to respect that it exists, and that it is not for you, and that’s it.

thetransintransgenic

Yeah no but this needs some context.

Like, Kabbalah is not just “mysticism”. It was/is a Jewish spiritual/religious reformation, born/created very deliberately as a response to the surrounding social pressures.

And by “social pressures”, I mean “Medieval Christians were freaking jerks”.

Now, when discussing anything to do with medieval Judaism you need to know Jews place in medieval society. Which was somewhere close to the bottom. Jews were tolerated — Christians, technically, aren’t allowed to make money off of lending to other Christians, so Jews were tolerated politically so that someone could run the banks. “Jews run all the banks!” yes, because you literally forced us to. Also, it was pretty useful for the nobles to, whenever they built up a lot of debt, say “The Jews ate a Christian baby!” and kill them all and incidentally burn their records. Apparently that wasn’t well known, so have a wikipedia article.

But anyways, I was talking about Kabbalah. Jews were tolerated religiously for a different reason — the “Wandering Jew” was said to be an example of “that’s what happens when you deny Christ”. They were tolerated as, basically, a theological argument — “These people deny God, and look at how sucky God made their life! They worship God incorrectly, and so God doesn’t protect them! They were once right, and now look at them stuck in the past! Look at how inconsequential they are!

The last bit, especially, was a big one. Being Jewish sucked and got you less than nothing and accomplished nothing. It felt like it was worth nothing — “Why are you Jewish?” “Well, God told me to.” “But God doesn’t really do anything for you, or help you at all, or…”. And that wasn’t just subtext — it was a fashion in medieval kingdoms to bring some random (or sometimes not) Jew in to court and have them debate with professional Christian theologists. Medieval Christians were weird. But, so it wasn’t just subtext — you were literally yelling that at us whenever you had a chance. Jews were being demoralized on a literally national scale.

And that’s where Kabbalah came in. Kabbalah was a brilliant invention — by God, if you believe the tradition, or by the Rabbis, if you don’t. Kabbalah is a set of mystic knowledge and interpretation passed down orally, secretly among the Rabbis. It notably reinterpreted, but didn’t reshape, Jewish traditions. What did a Kabbalist Judaism look like? exactly like anyone else’s. A Kabbalist would do the exact same lighting candles, saying prayers, ripping off a bit of the dough while baking it… but what Kabbalah added was meaning, was “your actions affect things at the highest spiritual realm”. Was “lighting Shabbat candles holds together the multiverse on a fundamental level”. Was “if no enough Jews prayed every day, the universe would stop.”

And that was exactly what medieval Judaism needed. “Why are you Jewish?” “Well, yeah, it isn’t easy, but somebody needs to keep the world spinning.” “You’re lying. I don’t understand how.” “Well, you can’t understand it — you’re not Jewish.” Kabbalah completely reshaped the purpose of being Jewish — and it did it without changing anything, or doing anything even the slightest bit unorthodox. The laws were still the same — and this wasn’t even the first time Oral traditions had been written down. It fit perfectly with Judaism, and spread like a wildfire from Spain out. Even if it’s fallen out of style, it’s probably one of the major reasons why there are still Jews today.

So what does that mean nowadays. Well, for one, it means that Kabbalah is basically intellectual sacred ground in Judaism. You — if you were Jewish — don’t even consider learning it until you’re 30. Taking it is saying “there’s literally no idea you can have that you can keep for yourself”. Christianizing it, Secularizing it, is saying “that thing that you, Jews, made, in order to save Judaism — it’s too Jewish. I don’t like it. I’d rather it be my way.” Kabbalah intellectually — and in stories, physically — shielded Jews and Judaism. Taking that says “you can’t have that shield because I want it.”

So yeah. Stop treating Kabbalah like it’s some sort of generic mysticism. It was literally our cultural antidepressants. Remember when I said before that medieval Christians were weird? And meant “weird” as in “theologically violent”? You’re still doing that. By taking and secularizing Kabbalah, you’re still saying that “Jews aren’t necessary, Judaism is outdated”. STAAAHHHP.

thetransintransgenic

P.S. If my description of its place in Jewish culture piques your interest, then go ahead — study it as a cultural phenomenon. Compare it to other theological revolutions. Learn about its place in Jewish Cultural history. Compare and contrast its appropriation during the Renaissance and its appropriation now. Read stories about Golems.

Learning about Kabbalah is fine — Kabbalah is a really cool thing that happened. But learning Kabbalah? No.

(And if you don’t get what the difference is — then maybe just don’t.)

littlegoythings

I would venture that actual theological scholars have very likely studied this text, alongside many others, in their respective cultural/religious contexts as part of their career. Which is something wildly different to this hippy feel good appropriative crap that I see everyone else being into and calling it “spirituality.”

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