The Struggle Is Real

One thing I’ve learned about writing is ”give everything a face”. It’s no good to write passively that the nobility fled the city or that the toxic marshes were poisoning the animals beyond any ability to function. Make a protagonist see how a desperate woman in torn silks climbs onto a carriage and speeds off, or a two-headed deer wanders right into the camp and into the fire. Don’t just have an ambiguous flock of all-controlling oligarchy, name one or two representatives of it, and illustrate just how vile and greedy they are as people.

it’s bad to have characters who serve no purpose in the story, but giving something a face is a perfectly valid purpose.

Cuadra 11 By Afro-Peruvian Jazz Orchestra, Lorenzo Ferrero, Anibal Seminario From the album Tradiciones Added to Discover Weekly playlist by Unknown User on April 29, 2024 at 12:00AM Listen on Spotify https://ift.tt/ByrSVUN

bro i LOVE indigenous fusion music i love it when indigenous people take traditional practices and language and apply them in new cool ways i love the slow decay and decolonisation of the modern music industry

Tumblr Tuesday: One for The Sapphics

It’s Lesbian Visibility Week! Happy lesbian visibility to all who celebrate the visibility of lesbians all year round. Please enjoy this little collection of sapphic (fan)art to honor the occasion, and may we all remember to give the lesbians in our lives a little forehead kiss. 🧡🤍🩷

@mimimar:

@greenfinchg-illustration:

@gentlemosses:

@doodlenoodleh:

@tapiocats:

@coldcigarettes:

@theartofmadeline:

@clipsindrawers:

@mayakern:

@cronchy-baguette:

@emiuli:

@causticcapricorn:

@zucchini-draws:

@carabiner-pansy:

@adalheidis:

@fshfish:

@thatssofarahh:

@evgar:

@katieaki:

@bhramarii:

@dyke-dyke-goose:

“I didn’t like that intersex person/trans masc and what they were saying, so I aggressively called them a cis woman over and over until they left in tears” that’s called misgendering and bigotry actually and you should be deeply ashamed of yourself . what the fuck is wrong with you

🏵️Eva Ayllón🏵️𖤓☽｡⋆

yo yo yo welcome back to this blog❤️

Today's artist is Peruvian legend Eva Ayllón. She's one of the most recognizable singers of peruvian creole music (música criolla), a very interesting genre that encapsulates the rich and varied culture of the country, mixing influences from Andean music (música andina), African music and European dances (like waltz and mazurka).

Eva Ayllón's musical career starts as a solist in the 1970s; she later joined the group "Los Kipus" and reached national recognition. (P.S. some of her best recordings are listed in Los Kipus' profile if you're using Spotify!)

Here's my favourite song from one of their best album:

Also called "la Reina del Landó", Eva is regarded as the best representative of afro-peruvian music. Landó is a dance originated from Angola, in Africa, where it was used to accompany marriage cerimonies. It was brought to Perú by the Spanish slave trade in the 16th century. There's also samba landó, which is very similar, from what I gather, though some people consider it to be the same as landó.

You can also find several other afroperuvian dances in her discography, like "Inga" for example.

Here's my favourite recording of "Taita Guaranguito", a landó song:

▪️yes pls:

total drama island if it sucked

I would love to learn more about the development of languages and dialects, last year I read a short story collection written in phonetic Afro-Peruvian dialect (it's called Monólogo desde las tinieblas by Arturo Gálvez Ronceros) and was intrigued with how similar it was to Caribbean Spanish dialects, with the dropped vowels and changing "r" sounds to "l". Or rather, I would like to learn not the theory but the particulars of certain cases, like in this one I imagine it would be the shared African influence given the distance between one another. I remember I also liked to find out that certain words in New World dialects were considered antiquated in the peninsula--it had to do with the time period that the language was brought, and decreasing contacts over time.

One thing I would like to do--and I think it will be hard, especially in English--is to stop calling castellano "Spanish." It always feels wrong, especially in its own language--when I learned to speak I called it castellano and when I grew older it continued to make no sense because, as I found out, there are many languages spoken in Spain, that originated in the territories of what is now Spain. It's not only inaccurate but disrespectful. Even more, when someone speaks castellano and says "español," it sounds to me like a calque of the word "Spanish" as it is used in the English language, much like saying americano when you mean estadounidense. It could be that some dialects natively use the term that way--I've heard Spaniards do it for example, and people from some Latin American countries--but to me it does not sound right. Is this too political? In reality I don't think anyone notices, but I will remember. Is this one of those antiquated words? Reading a 400-year book will have you saying, "See, they were calling it castellano," though for other words you have to break open the dictionary because usage has changed or the term is associated with topics that have nothing to do with your modern life, like artisanal fabrics and horse-rearing and outdated military practices.