Monday, December 2, 2013

Sources cited

CountessFayt. Fastina. 2013. http://www.deviantart.com/art/Muse-392170647
accessed November 24, 2013

Fastination cultural elements

In the fastination culture children acquire language when they are about three years of age, because at that age they have to be enrolled in school to be taught our language which is fastination. They are only allowed to speak fastination because they are not superiors, so it would be illegal to teach them any other language. In their early childhood you see the children beginning to say “faaaa”, because the first word they must learn is fastine, that is referring to the gods. They also start trying to say mom and dad, because they are not allowed to call their parents by their names, and those are the two words that children learn after learning fastine. Another vocalization is when they giggle, because giggling can lead to them making other sounds and begin to develop language a lot quicker. Being a Fastine you value money family and fashion, those are the three most important things in the culture. We have metaphors showing this, and the five most popular are as follows: Vanity will get you everywhere, blood is thicker than coins, a little black dress can save the day, family are like the roots of a tree, money can make even the crickets dance. Metaphor number one which is “vanity will get you everywhere”, shows how the fastinations value fashion a lot more than they value humbleness. The second which is, “blood is thicker than coins”, this metaphor shows that even though we do value money we value family a lot more. The third metaphor, “a little black dress can save the day”, again shows how we value fashion, because everyone knows that a little black dress is timeless and always appropriate. The fourth metaphor, “family are like roots of a tree”, shows how important family is once more, because they roots of a tree are extremely strong and so should be the bond we have with our families. The last and final metaphor, “money can make even the crickets dance”, we value money because with jewels which are our money we get everything that we need to look fabulous, and crickets never dance but money can do the impossible.
Fastination began in the 2000s in the start if a new millennium, as society evolved so did language. People began to notice that English was the dominating language and that it was becoming hard to distinguish amongst groups. The main fastination God called Fastina took it upon herself to try to create a new language system in order for the fastinations to be distinguished from the rest. She knew she wanted a language that would match the evolving trendy culture we had going on, so she came up with fastination. First it began with only two or three words but over the years the fastine people began to catch on and began communicating in fastine. Now in the year 2050 English has been lost to the Fastine, no fastine knows English unless they are Gods and we owe it all to our number one Goddess Fastina.
Fastination is spoken in a very soft manner, because we believe it is rude for people to talk too loudly, only the Gods can speak loud as that shows that they are above the rest. Only in the household can the wife and husband speak louder to each other showing their frustration towards each other, but in public they may not, in public they can only use soft voices. This shows how we believe it is rude to speak in a tone that is not soft, because only those superior to use are allowed to do that, so by raising our voice we show that we believe we are as good as the Gods.
Technology has really influenced the fastination language, because we are a very technology oriented culture. However we have not come up with any abbreviations for words because we have a limited amount of hours we can use technology throughout the day. So, technology is beneficial in our culture because we do not loose the roots of our language and continue to write in standard fastine. Fastina set a limit to the hours we can use technology for the same reason, she realized many cultures were loosing their standard form of language due to excessive use of technology, and she did not want this to happen to the fastination. She felt that if we let technology have such a big impact on our language we would become an uneducated culture and that their would not be much face to face communication amongst ourselves.
We do not have a lot of neologisms, but the ones we do have are to express how fabulous people look by using this neologisms we are emphasizing that they look more than good. For example if we really like someone’s outfit we say that it is “fartastic” because this shows how we see it as being far more than fantastic. Another one is “spanstastic”, because this which combines the word span and fantastic, this is another way of saying that you think someone looks amazing. We also use “toobilar” this is used amongst the younger girls as a form of saying “too cute”. The men use the neologism, “brotastic” it is still saying that they look fantastic, but in a friend manner that is why the word bro is at the beginning of the neologism. Neologisms however are most commonly used amongst woman, because woman praise themselves more than man. This words evolve over time, because as you can see the little girls use different neologisms than the ones their mothers use, signifying a difference in age group of the two. But as already said we do not have much neologism because we believe it is important to stick to standard Fastine because we do not want the roots of our language to be lost due to an excessive amount of neologisms. We also do not want our people to begin using slang when it comes to more serious situations, because we believe that slang should only be used amongst your friends not when you are speaking to your elders or to the Gods.
The fastination do not have differences when it comes to man and woman. Both man and woman have the right to speak the same way because neither one is superior from the other. Also it does not matter your race because as long as you are a fastine you are seen as equal to the rest of us, the only ones allowed to be treated differently are the Fastine Gods, which can only be Hispanic. Never in the history of the fastination has a god been anything other than Hispanic. This is because most of us are Hispanic, so we believe it would be for our best interest for our gods to be Hispanic as well as us. We are never allowed to speak of sex in public as that is something very personal and you should only speak of that at home. We are a very conservative culture when it comes to sexuality, you can only speak of it inside of your home and only to your spouse no one other than your spouse should know about something that personal.
In our culture we value everyone regardless of their sexual preferences, so we have different words for different kinds of loves. We believe that heterosexual marriage is equally important as homosexual marriage and to give them the same importance we have named each differently that way others know and wont ask questions. The word fro heterosexual marriage is “hetofasti” and the word for homosexual marriage is “homofasti”. We do not want people to feel awkward when talking about marriage and not knowing if it is heterosexual marriage or homosexual marriage. That is why the two words are used because there is no law preventing either kind of marriage, we believe everyone should have the right to love and be happy without being questioned. We also do not have a word for describing homosexual man and woman differently, we do not use the terms “gay” or “lesbian”, we simply use homosexual. This is because heterosexuals are not classified in two more categories they are just man and woman as well as homosexuals. So to make things more equal those are the only words that exist in our language.
We also do not believe in plastic surgery, so that is another word that we do not have in our vocabulary. We do have surgery, but it is not seen as something to make you more beautiful, it is seen as something to improve your health, so the term plastic before surgery will never be said, it is something we do not believe in. We believe that makeup and being put together is what makes one beautiful, but plastic surgery is an extreme which we would never go to so therefore it does not exist for us.
The media reflects our cultural norms by greatly emphasizing beauty and fashion. We have a lot of billboards and advertisements for make up and clothing. Only the most expensive and creative designers are allowed to have billboards and advertisements, because this shows the great value that we place on high end fashion and on creativeness. The makeup shows how the stereotypical Fastine woman needs to be put together at all times and always wear make up. The Fasting womans goal in being put together is trying to look like Fastina, she was a flawless Goddess who would always have the best gowns and always be wearing makeup. Not too much make up but just enough to make her look even more beautiful than what she already was, this is why our advertisements are only concentrated on fashion and make up. When someone sees fashion and make up billboards from other cultures they know those are aimed at the Fastines.
The Fastines interact in nonverbal communication quite frequently. They do this through their eyes and facial expressions, if they do not like something that another Fastine is saying they will express it nonverbally, because only the Gods can address those issues verbally. Also in the Fastine culture a roll of eyes is seen as a praise, when someone rolls their eyes at you it means that they are saying hi to you because they like you. Another form of nonverbal communication used by the Fastines is their clothing, they don’t say it but they are always competing to see who has the better outfit. Since they are allowed to but designer cloths as well as make their own clothing as long as it goes with the season, they are always trying to be as creative as possible, because the most creative Fastines always look the best. Also the jewels on the headbands are another form of nonverbal communication, because even though we all have jewels on our headbands we do not all have the same amount of jewels, the Fastination Gods have more jewels than the rest of us. The person with the most jewels in our culture is Fastina, because she is our number one God and the most powerful, no other God is allowed to have more jewels on his or head band than Fastina. We also communicate nonverbally through proxemics. If we are not Gods we must at all times be at least ten feet away from the gods as this is a sign of respect. Not only does this show respect but it shows class, they are of higher class and they are superior to the rest of us. Those who committed a crime and became homeless have to be ten feet away from the rest of society as we are not allowed to interact with them because they have committed a crime. Those criminals must at all times be at least fifty feet away from the Gods and one hundred feet away from Fastina, because the moment they committed a crime they were no longer worthy of our Gods or of the rest of society.


Fastination culture


http://www.deviantart.com/art/Muse-392170647
We are humans who live under ground, we solemnly speak fastination, no other language is allowed to be spoken in our culture. Because we are an advanced culture the only ones allowed to speak any other language are the fastinations which are our superiors, they are allowed to speak English amongst themselves. They discuses any important governmental issues amongst themselves in English because no one else understands that language but them. We distinguish our superiors from the rest because they are all over 300 pounds, and the rest of us are from 200 to 250 pounds. We must all wear headbands, but only our superiors are allowed to wear crystals on their headbands, because this is a sign of wealth and of social class. Our culture is based on high end fashion, we must all be put together at all times of the day, that is another way we are identified. Not only is fashion seen as a sign of beauty but being 200 to 250 pounds is what we believe to be beautiful and healthy. The bigger you are the healthier and wealthier you are, but you can not reach or exceed 300 pounds only the fastinations can, if you exceed those pounds you will be punished. We do not have much laws, being that we believe that people should be free and responsible for their actions, so when a rule is broken brutal consequences are faces by the lawbreaker. We only have a few laws in our civilization which are as follows: No one can be caught in last season’s trends, because we are a civilization that values fashion more than anything. One should never questions their superiors which are the fastinations being that they are the fountain of knowledge that cannot be disobeyed. You are allowed to get married with whoever you wish, under no circumstances much your freedom of marriage be obstructed. No family is allowed to have more than two kids, if they have more they are forced to give them up for adoption. Everyone must have a job, at least one person per household, because the government is not going to financially support anyone. We do not have money our form of buying things is through trade, we give people jewels for the exchange of whatever product we want. Everyone must own a car, because walking long distances can make you thin, and if you are thin you are not longer part of our culture you loose your identity. No one is allowed to kill, the fastinations are the only ones allowed to take someone’s life unnaturally. Those are the only rules we have, and must be obeyed. When someone dies in our culture, we do not burry them, we burn them with all of their cloths because we all were born with fashion, lived with fashion, therefore we must die with fashion. Man and woman both are seen the same and valued the same, no one is more superior, the only superior people in our culture are the fastinations. We do not have a class system, everyone is born with wealth because it is a law that everyone must work. Our school system is all about the fashion industry, only those chosen by the fastinations are allowed to be doctors, lawyers, judges, construction workers, plumbers, and so on. This however does not mean that you have more money than those working in the fashion industry, because we have no social classes. To make sure that there is not infidelity in our culture all those who get married man and woman must get a tattoo on their wrist big enough to distinguish them from those who are single, and those who are not married are not allowed to tattoo their wrist. However, we are allowed to get a divorce if we wish to, the only thing that you have to do before you get a divorce is to go through the pain of covering your tattoo with a skin color tattoo, if you fail to do this you cannot get divorced from your spouse. It is illegal to smoke in our civilization because smoking harms the lungs, so the sell and importation of cigarettes is illegal and could be punished with death. We are a very technology oriented culture, we have the latest technology before anyone else, but there are restrictions with our technology. You are only allowed to be on your electronic devices six hours out of the 24 hours that the day contains, because we do not want to be too focused on technology and begin to take fashion and those who surround us for granted. Everyone in our culture knows how to design their own cloths, they do not have to but it adds uniqueness to their style, the only thing is if they are designing something the fastinations must approve of it before they are allowed to wear it. By the cloths that people design for themselves you know if they are conservative, funny, wild, sexy, or simply classic. All woman must wear make up during the day, because make up for woman goes hand in hand with being put together, their look is not complete without the makeup it is part of the fashion. Men are not allowed to have beards, only the homeless are allowed to have beards as that is a sign of being poor, a criminal, and dirty. This is because they ended up being homeless because they broke the law. Something else that gets done to criminals is plastic surgery, they are made to weigh only 100 pounds in order to be distinguished, weighing 100 pounds is another sign of being a criminal, and it is seen as not being beautiful. We the fastinations eat all kinds of foods, but what distinguishes our food is that it is extremely spicy. We add spices to all of our foods, because we believe that the spicier the food the better the taste and the more we can eat. We do not eat with our hands we must always use a knife a fork and a spoon, only those who are homeless because they are criminals can eat with their hands. We do not welcome new people to our culture because we do not know if they can be trusted, they may simply be trying to steal our unique designs.