Oh my. That's utterly perfect.

I am, of course, King and God-Emperor of my own tiny atoll. It is about 100 square feet (and perfectly square, unlike atolls near the Mainland), and I rule it with a ZIM-like iron fist. DO NOT QUESTION.

I also have a very fast hovercar. I zip from my atoll to other Isles constantly; in fact, I think the crab I share my atoll with thinks it lives alone.

My most mainstream sibling once looked at my bookshelf, noticed Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age, and said "I liked Snow Crash better." So yeah, that's my family.

I very often feel like I'm a visitor on many of these islands. Like I speak the language, but don't get the inside jokes. For instance, I did not understand the Star Wars reference re: kung_fu_monkey's ceramic. It's like I was raised on a different island that has not only been cut off from the mainland, but doesn't even communicate with the other islands, often.

And I gotta tell you, as someone who has left my tribe, it's sometimes lonely when people don't get my references or my jokes. I'm not sure I will ever completely assimilate, though there are plenty of places I feel relatively comfortable.

I have visited many islands and feel quite comfortable traveling between many islands in the Archipelago of Weird and the Mainland. In fact, because I grew up in a bi-cultural home, I feel I've been doing this my whole life.

I got a little annoyed with the post, though, as she went on about the fairy tales and equating the lack of background knowledge about common fairy tales with the mainlandness of her classmates. Even the original written tales were adapted from hundreds of oral tales that differed from country to country and weren't all geared to demeaning women (thinking here specifically of Jack Zipes essay on the roots of Rumpelstiltskin - though he managed to do this without addressing the inherent anti-Semitic angle of said fairy tale). Each can be interpreted in many ways, and not only in the strict bad for girls! perspective. But I guess it doesn't matter much. I'm rambling. I'm rambling from the Isle of Folklore.

Yeah, I couldn't help but think of the discussions I've heard that a lot of those stories are young women learning the power of their sexual awakening, rather than the prince coming and freeing them.

Have you ever seen The Company of Wolves? It explores that theme alongside Little Red Riding Hood. But with werewolves. And Angela Landsbury's face breaks into ceramic shards at one point, like a doll head. It's worth seeing.

So True! I'm generalizing here, but, with the exception of Sleeping Beauty, few of these heroines are truly rescued by anything but their own courage, wit, and kindness. The sexual awakening component of fairly tales is interesting, and Freudian (if I remember correctly - I'm a fan, not a scholar), and therefore annoying.

I vaguely remember the movie, but I do remember Angela Carter's stories quite well. But now I want to see the movie.

Interestingly, most of my LJ flist is in the archipelago, but only maybe 30% of my FB flist. Which explains a lot about my habits in both.

Also, I dealt extensively with Moreno and psychodrama in my master's thesis. So, you know, that's probably a good sign about my homeland.

Although, I dunno, native land brings up an interesting point. I certainly, and likely many of us, had parents who were perfectly mainlander in character. So "native" is perhaps a bit of a rarity, though certainly not unheard of. But it means that (to stretch the analogy to the breaking point) this is more the the 19th century US than it is like Japan. It's an adopted homeland, for the most part, with people who have had to learn how to get along in spite of diversity, with some mixed results. But everyone knew what they were getting into within a day or two of arriving, and had the option to flee back home, so most of us understand what we're accepting.

It strikes me that those of us who can comfortably move between the mainland and various isles are valuable indeed to both sides.

I've got the same LJ/FB dichotomy. Normal people use Facebook. Interesting people use LiveJournal. Spastics use Twitter. Nobody uses MySpace.

I suspect that most archipelagans (archipelicans?) come from the mainland, and many return. Mainstream culture is actually pretty fluid itself. Look at the way that it's absorbed science fiction, and continues to absorb it. In time, archipelagos are absorbed into the mainland, or absorb it themselves.

What about those of us who co-locate between islands on near-opposite sides of the mainland? I guess that's where the analogy breaks down. You also have to take account of how the AoW is either growing to become a size significant to the mainland, or possibly starting to integrate into the fringe of the mainland. It's not as weird as it used to be. NERF is selling foam swords!