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You're talking about « The way is shut » or something like that? I liked that fic.
Yes, the way is shut.
I don't like it, I think it sucks.
You're talking about « The way is shut » or something like that? I liked that fic.
Nobody's responded to this yet, but I believe it's mentioned in a footnote that the Japanese government (I guess the aforementioned Doctor Kokura) decided to call zombies "siafu" after the African Driver Ants as a metaphor for how "mindless" hordes could consume society and the term stuck in Japan (because they sure as hell weren't gonna call them zombies in official government documents and press conferences). I'm not at home at the moment (on the other side of the country at AX now) so I can't check the footnote where this is mentioned right this minute, but I seem to remember this being the case.Also fucking 'siafu'? What language is that supposed to be? Swahili? That's what driver ants are called in Swahili, but the idea of a pair of fucking revanchist Imperial Japan fascist guys using the term is enough to render the entire interview farcical. Why not have them call them fucking jiangshi while you're at it, buddy?
Why tho? Personally I liked it.
Looks like I've got them backwards then. Not sure what the name is of the one I was thinking of, but it sounds like you're both on the same page anyway.The way is shut is the one where the tunnels are filled with water.
Which is weird, because, like... Zombie Survival Guide brought up race relations all the time in the Recorded Attacks section. It was clumsy, sure, dripping with orientalism and noble-savage tropes on a semi-regular basis, but racism gets used as one of the main things that tended to either exacerbate disasters or render it far more difficult for the information afterward to spread. A specific example was an outbreak that happened in a Caribbean colony, where most of the white settlers were turned or devoured, leaving the surviving slaves (who had some knowledge of zombies due to oral tradition) to band together and wipe out the zombies... only for the colonial law enforcement to sail in a week later and then immediately arrest and execute or re-enslave all the slaves, as well as the free black and mulatto inhabitants, declaring the whole thing to be a slave revolt. It's not great, but it does suggest an actual awareness of the issue and an attempt to grapple with it.That would require Brooks to acknowledge that race relations exist.
I don't care for this, for like... a number of reasons. I don't love the prose, the guy who wrote it clearly doesn't really understand North Korea's relationship with its various neighbours (the soft underbelly of North Korea is not the coastline facing the Sea of Japan, genius.) and I don't agree with his interpretation of North Korea in WWZ.
There is a sizeable trend within the American cultural mindset that wants to admit that race relations and bigotry caused bad things to happen in the past, while utterly refusing to engage with the question of what that implies for the present.Which is weird, because, like... Zombie Survival Guide brought up race relations all the time in the Recorded Attacks section. It was clumsy, sure, dripping with orientalism and noble-savage tropes on a semi-regular basis, but racism gets used as one of the main things that tended to either exacerbate disasters or render it far more difficult for the information afterward to spread. A specific example was an outbreak that happened in a Caribbean colony, where most of the white settlers were turned or devoured, leaving the surviving slaves (who had some knowledge of zombies due to oral tradition) to band together and wipe out the zombies... only for the colonial law enforcement to sail in a week later and then immediately arrest and execute or re-enslave all the slaves, as well as the free black and mulatto inhabitants, declaring the whole thing to be a slave revolt. It's not great, but it does suggest an actual awareness of the issue and an attempt to grapple with it.
I'd not be surprised if there was, to a degree, an "end of history" mindset going on: that is to say, things sucked then, but they're better now. The only real intentional racism-is-bad moment I recall in WWZ is the bit about the Indian shipyard evacuation where it's noted that some captains were refusing to let certain races or castes onto their boats.
It's funny how that mindset managed to persist even right after it was proven wrong stateside, after just a decade of actually being a concept. I guess to some, what happened was just an anomaly, we'd be back to our regularly scheduled end of history momentarily. Idk, I'm just starting to really look into how Bush-era America acted and lived and it's fucking weirdI'd not be surprised if there was, to a degree, an "end of history" mindset going on: that is to say, things sucked then, but they're better now.
He may have had some bad beliefs even so, but... in this interpretation, it sounds like he was relatively harmless and minding his own business until someone younger and sneakier got into the game.OOC: The idea that the blind Japanese monk is really just a senile old man being used as a politcal catspaw...makes me go from hating him to pitying him in a way that I honestly didn't think was possible.
OOC: I think that Max Brooks had well-intentions in writing this book. Except it just that it was colored by pop-culture expectations that us readers wanted to look and some veiled RL positions he espoused. That, and his skinny dipping to the ideas of the Reformer Movement.OOC: If you want my honest opinion, I think that Brooks is the kind of guy who thinks that fascism is deeply evil, but ultimately also badass and cool. He wouldn't want to live under fascists, and as a Jew he's well aware of how awful fascists are, but he's into jackboots and smart uniforms and Hard Men and all the rest. So, he figures on some level if he wants his heroes to be the ultimate badasses they've got to be fashy. I really do get the sense that it comes from this idea of fascism being evil, sure, but cool. Fiction allows him to explore the "coolness" of fascists and fascist-adjacent society in a safe(r) environment.
There is a sizeable trend within the American cultural mindset that wants to admit that race relations and bigotry caused bad things to happen in the past, while utterly refusing to engage with the question of what that implies for the present.
Gonna push back against this, a little. The right kind of shovel absolutely can. A heavy duty shovel that can withstand being repeatedly rammed into rocks all day isn't going to have trouble with skulls.Not a chance that a shovel withstands being driven through more than maybe 10-12 skulls, I think.
As a general rule, most tools you would think of grabbing to use as an improvised melee weapon are oddly effective at being a weapon expecially against zombies. Odds are, if the tool is decent quality durability won't be a factor.Gonna push back against this, a little. The right kind of shovel absolutely can. A heavy duty shovel that can withstand being repeatedly rammed into rocks all day isn't going to have trouble with skulls.
Granted, that's not the kind of shovel you'd expect a hotel gardener to be using for puttering around flower beds. But the kind meant for compacted clay soil filled with rocks and spite? Plenty tough.
There are certainly tools which would potentially be better, they're just far less common. A long-hafted brush axe/billhook, say.A solid wood shafted shovel, 5 foot long is likely the absolute best weapon you can find that wasn't explicitly designed to be a weapon. Is it a polearm or spear? No. Is it a better choice than a baseball bat? Usually.
I'd doubt even Max Brooks himself would be offended if we used Terkelist style instead of WWZ style. Our userbase is partly Alt-history and Max wears his influences on his sleeves in interviews.By the way, on the notion of Zombies and Oral Histories ...
Someone's done an Oral History in a World War Z style about the Borg and Wolf 359 and such. I can share it it's considered relevant to Zombies and an Oral History?
Time displaced Warhammer 40k Krieger, maybe.
Frankly that meme is likely as not to arise from this book, rather than the other way around. As I mentioned earlier in my discussion, the three Vraks series books Imperial Armor books, which are basically a novel-length analysis of a Death Korps campaign and from which much of the Death Korps lore is consolidated... this doesn't happen. Like, using entrenching tools as an improvised weapon gets mentioned maybe twice in hundreds of pages. Because the Death Korps has bayonets and trench knives and other weapons that are actually dedicated to their purpose. For that matter, it's noted that they rarely use the entrenching tool to actually dig trenches, but more for spot maintenance - the trenches are dug by big excavators on a Leman Russ chassis, like you'd expect when digging thousands of kilometers of elaborate earthworks.
It's a Zombie War World Tour.It's interesting to me how… cartoonishly other cultures are portrayed. Britain is all monarchy and castles, Russia is a totalitarian empire that happily decimates its own soldiers, Japan is some sort of weeaboo wet dream, etc. It creates this really strong feel of someone trying to write a global perspective without ever talking to someone outside of the US.
Could you edit the title into this post? People reading the thread to catch up are sort of put in a position of either DMing you weeks later or, as I'm doing now, asking for the title in thread because this feels less socially awkward, and I feel like it might save you potentially a dozen odd PMs over the years from people asking about it to edit the title into the post talking about it.I'll find it and PM you it, I don't want to overly detract from the actual story of the thread we're in to another.
Keep going through the posts, a link will appear from me.Could you edit the title into this post? People reading the thread to catch up are sort of put in a position of either DMing you weeks later or, as I'm doing now, asking for the title in thread because this feels less socially awkward, and I feel like it might save you potentially a dozen odd PMs over the years from people asking about it to edit the title into the post talking about it.
oh whoops you already linked it, my bad, should have waited a page or so here XDAh what the heck.
An Adjusted Battle of Yonkers - Ms_Adequate - World War Z - Max Brooks [Archive of Our Own]
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Worksarchiveofourown.org
If people don't mind, I'd like that. Or I could ask on your profile page if it's against the rules.By the way, on the notion of Zombies and Oral Histories ...
Someone's done an Oral History in a World War Z style about the Borg and Wolf 359 and such. I can share it it's considered relevant to Zombies and an Oral History?