idk, everyone needs to draw a catgirl once in a while.

Labels: _art, verse: misc.

Sometimes you're tired but you just don't want to sleep.

Labels: _art, c: kit scythe, verse: errerrin

This isn't fiction. This isn't art. What it is is a post about racism, because there are some things that just need to be said.

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I grew up, more or less, an expatriate in an international community. I've attended a local Malaysian private school, an American/international school in the Netherlands, local public school in Texas (CULTURE SHOCK let me tell you), and now again an American/international school in KL. And lately I've noticed something really weird about the international community, just because of all the posts lately about race and racism.

It's this: We like to pretend we're not racist.

First: I'm racist. When I was little, my friends and I would bully a girl called Rishayini. She was Indian. That made it okay. I'm better now, but I don't believe you can get rid of internalized racism that easily. Or, let's be honest here, at all.

Growing up international helped the most. It's just hard to stay that blatantly racist when you have friends from India, from Korea, from Sri Lanka, from--everywhere, really. (Except maybe Russia. Weirdly enough, the only Russian I know I met in Texas.) It opens your eyes. And the international community is, in general, a weirdly nice place. It's easy to be nice when people are, for the most part, well-paid, well-informed and well-traveled. And people comment a lot about what they've seen, about international news, about all the different economic and political systems.

And then when the subject turns to racism, the general sentiment is this: Malaysia has racial problems. America has racial problems. France has racial problems. But we don't, because we have been ~exposed to diversity~, and--

Wait.

What?

We are better than the average, I'll admit. Diversity helps... but it doesn't magically cure racism. The assumption that international = non-racist is just mind-boggling. Yet it's mentioned all the time, in discussions about race, about prejudice: that pat-on-the-back comment, with all its ignorant implications and self-congratulatory deceit.

The problems aren't as obvious. There are no fights, no riots. But they're there, and I just wish people in my community would admit to that.

Labels: _meta, meta: racism

Labels: _art, verse: misc.

I've actually been writing, um, a lot these past few months. But I haven't actually been finishing anything. Yes, I fail.

Below is something I might finish up for the lit-mag. |:

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in a name

--are her last words. Then the world spins wildly; Mire spends the last two dozen seconds of her life as a decapitated head. She dies with her eyes still open.

There is a brief moment of disconnect. When Mire stands up again, she is a spirit. The crowd is a roaring, screaming creature, thrown into blissfully wild glee because of her death. The sun is low enough that the shadows spread themselves long and thin over the arena stage. Mire's body is lying on its side, arms loosely folded against the chest, the knees bent and the ankles crossed.

Mire-the-spirit steps over it dispassionately and watches as her opponent hoists her former head high above him. He stands as still and quiet as Mire's recently vacated body, the furor of the crowd washing thick and viscous over him. He wears the victory like a cloak as he strides out of the arena, the head of Mire's body still swinging from one hand. Later it will be displayed in front of one of the arena's main entrances. Her body will be used as bait for starved animals, and the crowd will cheer as loud as they do now.

There is a place where all spirits go, located at the center of all the worlds. It has a thousand-thousand names in as many tongues. Mire opens her mouth, tries to form the shape of it in her own language. When she cannot, she realizes it is because she has forgotten.

Because it has no name, it does not exist to her. Therefore she cannot go. But there is a name she remembers, burned fresh into her mind like a firebrand. Mire turns and walks. She passes through the iron grill that separates the arena from its underworld, into the tunnels that hold starving beasts and desperate gladiators and broken slaves.

And, as well, the man who killed her.

Labels: _fiction, c: methis, verse: etherworld