hi everyone

(Mother)

waleda,ammi,maa,mummy,anne

There’s a post about how the Avatar stories misrepresented, stereotyped and appropriated from Indian culture. Consider this, the concept of the avatar (descent) is derived from Hinduism which is the main religion of India. But the way Avatar presented parts of Hinduism is disrespectful to any follower of the faith, the third eye represents spiritual awareness and while Shiva is the god of destruction, he’s not supposed to be evil.

A character with powers based on something like the Hindu five elements (admittedly, I’m more familiar with Wuxing or the Chinese counterpart) would be kind of cool to portray. But it has to be done with respect and actual interest in such a culture, the Avatar staff certainly did respect East Asian and indigenous cultures. But when it comes to South Asian cultures, as far as I remember, it’s rather scant despite the fact that Tibet (the region that inspired the Air Nomads) was influenced by India.

Buddhism came from India, even if it persisted en masse elsewhere. One might wonder if the Avatar creators picked bobs and pieces of Indian culture, whilst perhaps distorting those borrowings. As what somebody said, Shiva’s not an evil god and the third eye actually has spiritual importance for Hindus. There are three ways to get away with this, either include a respectful portrayal of Indian-coded characters there or hope and pray for your country to be heavily influenced by India.

(I actually did this with China, yes I did it).

[ID: a tag reading, “#don’t eat citrus if you have any mental health problems #the vitamin C is so bad for you” end ID]

I've seen some interesting discussions back and forth about making historical fiction and particularly historical romance more inclusive, and I do think that there's some merit to the argument that merely inserting BIPOC as part of the ruling class erases many of the historic struggles people went through in terms of both class and race.

However, there's something that people don't seem to realize when it comes to the Regency Era: it's a fantasy realm that was primarily created by a single author.

Just as J.R.R. Tolkien published his Lord of the Rings books and created a world that would loom over the fantasy genre for decades to come, Georgette Heyer created the Regency Era in a way that I think people looking at the romance genre from the outside don't really understand.

Heyer wrote several historical romances and mystery novels prior to 1935, but it was with Regency Buck that she introduced her version of the Regency Era, a version that has actually been far more influential in popular culture than that of Jane Austen. (Most of the Austen adaptations pull more from Heyer than people realize, especially in terms of manners.) Heyer's world is all polite society heroes with a stiff upper lip and perhaps a tinge of rakishness, spirited yet virginal heroines, and a cast of supporting characters that range from younger brothers to elderly aunts.

There are very few hints that anyone outside the aristocracy is of any consequence, or even knows how to behave themselves, even when the middle-class daughter of a rich "Cit" marries an impoverished aristocrat in A Civil Contract. Sex exists, but only behind firmly closed doors and, for the heroines, only after marriage.

And what about the minorities that we know lived in Great Britain during the Regency Era? Not just the racial minorities that included Black citizens and former slaves as well as Indian immigrants, but also religious minorities? They pretty much don't exist in Heyer's world, apart from a few anti-Semitic stereotypes of rapacious Jewish moneylenders that make modern readers cringe when they stumble across an unbowdlerized edition. There are a few jokes and whispers about "unmanly" men, but that's about it for LGBTQIA+ representation as well.

Given what we now know about the Regency Era -- and we know a lot more than Heyer did when she was writing almost a hundred years ago -- we know that her view of Regency society was as artificial as Tolkien's world. Despite her use of historical sources, her romance novels are set in a fantasy world that melds the fashions and historical events of the Regency with the Victorian morals and mores that Heyer herself was raised with. The Regency Era was the late Georgian Era and was far more vulgar and free-wheeling than Heyer was willing to admit. She left out the people who didn't fit into her vision of the Regency, which showed an Anglo-Saxon ruling class that deserved to rule because of their natural superiority.

So my opinion about TV shows and films like Bridgerton and Mr. Malcolm's List that show an inclusive aristocracy in the Regency Era is ... well, it's all fantasy anyway, isn't it? Why not make the fantasy inclusive since the whole era is Heyer's illusion dressed up with a few historical details?

Note: the Silliman excerpt does contain vintage 1803 language that is slightly offensive today.

I've seen some interesting discussions back and forth about making historical fiction and particularly historical romance more inclusive, and I do think that there's some merit to the argument that merely inserting BIPOC as part of the ruling class erases many of the historic struggles people went through in terms of both class and race.

However, there's something that people don't seem to realize when it comes to the Regency Era: it's a fantasy realm that was primarily created by a single author.

Just as J.R.R. Tolkien published his Lord of the Rings books and created a world that would loom over the fantasy genre for decades to come, Georgette Heyer created the Regency Era in a way that I think people looking at the romance genre from the outside don't really understand.

Heyer wrote several historical romances and mystery novels prior to 1935, but it was with Regency Buck that she introduced her version of the Regency Era, a version that has actually been far more influential in popular culture than that of Jane Austen. (Most of the Austen adaptations pull more from Heyer than people realize, especially in terms of manners.) Heyer's world is all polite society heroes with a stiff upper lip and perhaps a tinge of rakishness, spirited yet virginal heroines, and a cast of supporting characters that range from younger brothers to elderly aunts.

There are very few hints that anyone outside the aristocracy is of any consequence, or even knows how to behave themselves, even when the middle-class daughter of a rich "Cit" marries an impoverished aristocrat in A Civil Contract. Sex exists, but only behind firmly closed doors and, for the heroines, only after marriage.

And what about the minorities that we know lived in Great Britain during the Regency Era? Not just the racial minorities that included Black citizens and former slaves as well as Indian immigrants, but also religious minorities? They pretty much don't exist in Heyer's world, apart from a few anti-Semitic stereotypes of rapacious Jewish moneylenders that make modern readers cringe when they stumble across an unbowdlerized edition. There are a few jokes and whispers about "unmanly" men, but that's about it for LGBTQIA+ representation as well.

Given what we now know about the Regency Era -- and we know a lot more than Heyer did when she was writing almost a hundred years ago -- we know that her view of Regency society was as artificial as Tolkien's world. Despite her use of historical sources, her romance novels are set in a fantasy world that melds the fashions and historical events of the Regency with the Victorian morals and mores that Heyer herself was raised with. The Regency Era was the late Georgian Era and was far more vulgar and free-wheeling than Heyer was willing to admit. She left out the people who didn't fit into her vision of the Regency, which showed an Anglo-Saxon ruling class that deserved to rule because of their natural superiority.

So my opinion about TV shows and films like Bridgerton and Mr. Malcolm's List that show an inclusive aristocracy in the Regency Era is ... well, it's all fantasy anyway, isn't it? Why not make the fantasy inclusive since the whole era is Heyer's illusion dressed up with a few historical details?

Treat your academics like a freaking fantasy book. Studying Language? Imagine yourself speaking the language you are learning to native speakers. In front of your relatives. Who don't know what the hell is going on. Science? No problem, it's even better. Imagine yourselves a part of what you are learning about- like just imagine being an electron in a crowd of them.

Or make puns out of stuff that's exhausting to learn. A cation is pawsitive cause a cat has paws. An anion is negative cause onions make you cry. Phyics is getting confusing? Close you book once you've gotten the concept to an extent and try to visualise it as happening in your room. (My physics teacher used to jump around the room making exaggerated hand gestures to help us visualise the concepts he was teaching).

Make a little song out of math formulas. Tell yourself bad dad jokes that fit into what you are learning when you are memorising the steps to solve an equation.

History and Geography could be the funnest. Imagine yourself as a giant monster looking at the Earth and scratching latitudes and longitudes on earth with your long nails, evilly laughing as you scratch the Tropic of Cancer and Tropic of Capricorn on 23.5° North and South 'cause the 235th King missed to send his offering. Make a story out of it. Imagine being a citizen of Mesopotamia and watching events unfold rather than rereading it again and again in hopes to remember it.

Learning and studying can never be as entertaining as mindlessly watching youtube videos, but it doesn't have to as traumatisingly bland as school taught us.

Hello- SOS - This is an emergency...

So my reading goal for this year was to be 56 books (it was supposed to be 52 but some things happened and I accidently created slots for 4 more books in my physical reading journal so it became 56...if it makes sense?)

Now i know it shows that I've already read 54 but actually I've read 53 thoroughly and one is just there because I've completed it but in a skimming way. So I have to read like 3 more to reach my reading goal. And it's already the 23rd of December.

But the biggest issue is that I'm on a trip with my family and while we'll be going back home on Christmas we'll be leaving the next day on another trip (My father is bad at planning but I'll be quiet -the man's trying) and come back after New Year.

And I'm internally panicking cause how am I going to to do this? Do yall (please excuse the AAVE i dont know how else to say this right) think I could finish Shadow and Bone trilogy in three days? Is it engaging enough? Or should I just edit my Reading goal to a number I've already accompalished?

Also if anyone has any books recs that got you engaged right off the bat, my upcoming generations will hear your legends dear friend GIVE ME THE NAMES////!

DID IT!!!! I DID IT!

Also I panicked and ended up picking up a poetry book on 31st on our flight back home since I had lost count of how many books I had to finish. So I ended up reading one more than my reading goal. (it shows two more because again- one of the books I had only sort of halfheartedly read through and don't really want to consider in my reading goal)