The Old Guard fandom has its own HIVliving, MedievalPOC, Rose Christo, white girl who is totally a Cherokee Princess because she did a test and found that she’s 1% Native American, and the charade has been going on for too long.
This post is about Len (better known as LGBTmazight, romiosini, figure8, junmotions). The information compiled here has been found and organized by people of many ethnicities, including those she pretends to be (namely two Moroccans, one of whom is Amazigh, who were raised in Morocco and speak the language), who are now exhausted by her uncontrolled racism. This post is not an invitation to send her hate: it’s a compilation of her unbridled racefaking for internet points, and comes with the invite of blocking her and not using her as a reference when it comes to information regarding MENA countries. 99% of what she says, she copies from Google and often attributes to the wrong country.
As of summer 2021, Len is claiming to be a brown Maghrebi-Greek woman who comes from poverty and whose parents weren’t able to afford to give her an adequate education, works in manual labor, was raised between Greece and Morocco for the first seven years of her life, is dark-skinned enough to get harassed by the police everywhere she goes, and has learned pride in her heritage from her Muslim Moroccan father. She claims to be able to speak, among other languages, Darija, Arabic, and Tmazight.
However, in her internet career Len has also identified as being: white, white-passing, brown, Muslim, Orthodox Christian, animist from a family of shamans and in line to become the next “Darwisa”, French, Spanish, Peloponnesian/Pontic/Anatolian Greek, Sephardic Jewish, Jewish with family “in Europe during WW2", partly Romani, Moroccan, specifically Riffian Moroccan with solely Amazigh descent, and with “close ties to Asia Minor”. Her economic status has shifted from being able to live in the world’s most expensive neighborhoods and attending fancy private schools during the Global Recession to having to ask her followers for change. According to her stories, her family has been at the center of every tragedy that happened in North Africa and Europe since the beginning of the 1900s.
This to say: Len, LGBTmazight, is a racefaker on the same level as HIVliving, a parasite who latches onto racial stereotypes and applies them to her person to give herself, as well as her followers, the right to harass, abuse, and send death threats to people who do not follow or support her narrative. It will be brought up later, but the Moroccan Amazigh person who participated in writing the post, as well as other MENA individuals, were appalled by the blatant racism, Orientalism, antiblackness, fetishization, and White Savior Syndrome displayed by Len, as well as her open disrespect for actual Moroccan traditions, people, and culture. Although this began as a light-hearted research, it soon became clear that Len’s racism, xenophobia especially against Italians and Ukrainians, antisemitism, and downright disgusting behavior are incredibly serious issues, to the point that one of the MENA individuals behind this post became physically ill from seeing what she puts online.
None of the information compiled here is a product of doxxing: it is a collection of what Len herself has put online over the years, and let it be known that we were gracious enough to not post her, her parents’, and her sister’s full and legal names and faces despite the fact that Len has shared them multiple times.
As an appetizer, here’s the face of the “racialized” brown woman who claims to be constantly abused and racially profiled because of her dark skin and North African features:
Although in the past she identified as they/them or he/him, on her current Twitter her pronouns are she/her. This account will do the same.
And here is what she thinks of Black and Jewish people: they are obstacles to the attentions she should, in her opinion, receive for the made-up abuse she rants about online. Her platforms were never about defending, representing, and protecting minorities; it was always a stage for her to grab the attention of well-meaning people. About actual minorities, she couldn’t care less and considers them a nuisance:
(In these tweets she is talking about xenophobia, something she has said is only ever brought up as a way to shift the conversation away from racism. How the tables have turned, Len.)
A summary of the contents of the post: Len is 25% Moroccan at most, was born and raised in Europe, never lived in the Maghreb, doesn’t speak the language, didn’t learn about Islam from her father, never suffered any racially-charged abuse, and never lived in poverty. Her father is a tenured professor and has been one since the 1990s, and her mother is also an extremely well-respected professor; they have dozens of publications between them, and her mother seems to have written the text for her field. Although we have no certainties regarding their monthly income, it is easy to say they are wealthy: both Len and her sister were sent to private schools all their lives, her family could afford to own/rent multiple residencies at the same time, drive around in expensive cars, go on vacation often, and buy Apple products immediately after release. Everything she has said since she started looking for fandom clout is a lie and she has used your desire to be good people to her advantage. Extensive proof is below the cut, and mind that this is only the tip of the iceberg: we have more and it only gets worse.
Hélène, we were initially open to dialogue, but after seeing that you’re a genocide denier who keeps inventing stories of abuse to get pity from people while you spend your time harassing actual PoC and other minorities, as well as being someone who has no problems calling Marwan Kenzari the French version of the insult “sand-ni**er”, we realized you are not redeemable in any way.
We already know she’s going to screenshot this and whine about it on Twitter, because even if she likes to portray herself as a great debater, she has never been able to hold a single online conversation without first victimizing herself and crying about being abused, then screenshotting and asking her followers to harass the people who disagreed with her. We are not doing this for her; she’s neither important nor special enough for that. We are doing this to get rid of the racism, xenophobia, antisemitism, and fetishization of MENA people that she has spent a yearaiding.
Another one of these posts in quick succession because a thing I’ve noticed in many, many fanfiction is the incorrect use of titles and honorifics in Nicky’s Italian lines. Which… I get it, it’s super-uper difficult to get and also Google is the worst of all to translate the right use and nuance (my suggestion is to always prefer Reverso Context when translating entire phrases, it’s based on examples and it’s more accurate in general). So!
Let’s start with family (famiglia, with a gl, different to the Spanish word).
Papà = dad (please, please, PLEASE USE THE ACCENT. Just like Nicolo ≠ Nicolò, remember that Papa = Pope. And Nicky’s dad - or Nicky as a dad - is not a Pope). Variants! They are mostly regionals, but you can also use: papi, babbo, pa’. Father = padre, so if Nicky has to refer to an austere father figure or someone else’s father? Use padre and the honorific form (we will get to that). Mamma = mom. Variants! Mami, mammà, ma’. Mother = madre. Figlio/a = son/daughter. Sorella = sister. Older sister = sorella maggiore or sorellona(like ‘big sis’), younger sister = sorella minoreorsorellina(’lil sis’). Fratello= brother. Older brother = fratello maggioreorfratellone(’big bro’), younger brother = fratello minoreorfratellino(’lil bro’). Nonno/a = grandad/grandma. Also: nonnino/nonnina, it’s cute. Zio/a = uncle/aunt. Cute: zietto/zietta. Cugino/a = cousin. Younger cousins could also be called: cuginetto/cuginetta. Nipote = nephew/niece and grandson/granddaughter. Younger ones: nipotino/nipotina. Suocero/a = father-in-law/mother-in-law. Cognato/a = brother-in-law/sister-in-law. Genero = son-in-law. Nuora = daughter-in-law. … and I’m stopping here, but if you have questions on other particular words just DM me :D
How to address loved ones.
Amico/a = friend. Someone who’s always very friendly and nice to hang up with = amicone/a. The BFF from when you were young kids = amichetto/a. Ragazzo/a = boyfriend/girlfriend. ‘Chi è? Il tuo ragazzo?’ = ‘Who’s that? Your boyfriend?’. Variants (also regionals): ragazzino/a,moroso/a,tipo/a. Fidanzato/a = fiancée. Could also be used as boy/girlfriend, but it’s mostly for couples about to get married. However, nonne all over Italy at Christmas would always ask their nephews/nieces ‘ce l’hai il/la fidanzatino/a?’ which basically is ‘have you found yourself a boy/girlfriend?’. Marito/moglie = husband/wife.
How to address royalty/nobility (to the person who asked about this specifically some time ago: took me some time, but here it is).
Prete = priest. Also: don (mostly used before the name to address the priest, like ‘Don Nicolò’)(yeah I know it reminds you of mafia names, that’s where they get it from… it’s basically a substitute of ‘signore’, frequently used in the South). You can also call the priest padre(father) ‘Padre Nicolò’.Padre superiore = father superior, frate = friar, monaco = monk, eremita = hermit, abate = abbott. To address a friar: fra and the name, like ‘Fra Giacomo’. Suora = nun. To address the nun: suor and the name, like ‘Suor Cristina’. Also: sorella, madre superiora = mother superior (’Madre Teresa’),badessa = abbess. Vescovo = bishop. ‘Sua Eccellenza’ = His Excellency. Arcivescovo = archbishop. ‘Sua Grazia’ = His Grace. Cardinale = cardinal. ‘Sua Eminenza’ = His Eminence. Papa = Pope. POPE. P-O-P-E as in the old holy guy dressed in white living in Vaticano. First rule of Italian, folks: we don’t have as many accents as the French, but when we do THEY MUST BE USED. Also: Santo Padre = Holy Father. ‘Sua Santità’ = His Holiness. I had to translate half ‘Wikihow - come rivolgersi al clero cattolico’ LOL
There should probably be a whole chapter about politics too, but you get the drift: use Reverso, check the examples and write me (or any other Italian user in the TOG fandom) a DM if you’re in doubt.
And we arrive straight to the honorific form. This is hard, I know… English doesn’t really have this form, but it’s extremely important to know it and know the differences to write/talk good Italian.
The basic rule is that when we speak to someone who’s above us in hierarchy (a client, a professor, an older colleague, ecc.) or a stranger, we use ‘lei’. Dare del lei means not referring to the person with the singular form of ‘you’ = tu, but use the female third person singular. Let’s proceed with an example: if you’re writing Nicky as a professor, he’s gonna be called ‘prof Di Genova’ by his Italian students. They wouldn’t say ‘prof, non interrogarmi’ to him, but they would use the ‘lei’ form: ‘prof, non mi interroghi’ (don’t test/question me, professor). This form is basically the most frequently translated by Google. This is why the most frequent mistake in fanfiction is Nicky asking ‘scusi?’ (sorry, in the ’lei’ form) to Joe or Andy or Booker instead of ‘scusa?’. As much as I think Nicky is a very polite guy and he definitely would use the ‘lei’ form with strangers, he knows his family (and his husband!) well enough to use the ‘you’. As a rule, always check if the translated Italian you are using is in the honorific form and, if it shouldn’t be in your fic (as in: Nicky is talking to someone he knows, like Nile or Joe or his family), change it to the ‘you’ form. NB! Nice nuance in fanfiction: Nicky using the ‘lei’ form with Copley or even Merrick (sometimes using the honorific form with asshole strangers adds a very sassy flavour) and Nicky using the ‘lei’ form with Joe if you’re writing a first meeting AU (in a polite/formal environment). It’s cute because there’s frequently a moment during a first meeting conversation where people ask each other: ‘possiamo darci del tu?’ (can we use the ‘you’ form?) and I think it’d work well with them.
You think this is it? THINK AGAIN! We also have an even more reverential form, to use with very veeery important people (nobility, extremely high-up people and the such) which is dare del voi.Voi = you (second person plural). The ‘vostra’ you saw above in the royalty part comes from this. Example: if Nicky is a prince or a king, a counselor should address him with the ‘voi’ form. ‘Vostra maestà, vogliate scusarmi: ho dimenticato di aggiornarvi su questo argomento’ (Your Majesty, please excuse me: I’ve forgotten to give you updates on this topic).
A bit complicated, I know, but I hope I’ve helped. Remember you can DM me anytime if you have questions. If you think I’ve forgotten something, please add a comment so that I can reply! :D
Here are the links to my previous ‘Italian language for fellow writers’ posts:
TOG fandom - How to write “good” in Italian (a little help for fellow writers)
I had this post planned for some time now, since I’ve read some mix-ups in quite a few fanfiction. I’m not the kind of reader who comments pointing out languages errors (doesn’t that feel rude, somehow?), so I hope this post reaches all the authors confused by Italian translations.
Basically, there’s a difference between “bene” good and “bello” good.
In the kill floor scene, when Andy asks how the others are (physically and emotionally), Nicky replies in Italian the equivalent of “all good”.
“Bene” is the ‘right’/’well’ good, as opposite of “male” = bad. It’s superlative form is “benissimo” (”Come stai oggi?” “Benissimo, grazie!” - “How are you today?” “Very good, thank you!”). You can also use it to describe someone appearance (”You look good!” - “Ti trovo bene!”) but in the ‘well’ sense, as in you find someone healthy/in good shape.
“Bello/a” is the ‘nice’/’beautiful’ good. Superlative form: “bellissimo/a” (”Sei bellissimo, Yusuf.” - “You are beautiful, Yusuf.”). It’s used to describe mostly someone’s nice appearance or a good view, a good feeling. NB! This is an adjective word so remember it has to follow the same number and genre of the subject you’re using (”Bella scoperta!” - “Good find!”, “Hai degli occhi bellissimi” - “You have beautiful eyes”).
There’s also “buono/a” and “buonissimo/a”, the ‘delicious’/’kind’ good. (”Sei così buona con me” - “You are so good to me.”). Used to appreciate food as well as the kindness of people. NB! Also an adjective.
Opposites time!
When the food is bad we don’t say it’s ‘male’, but it’s cattivo/a (still bad, but in the ‘evil’/’nasty’ meaning) or we can say it tastes bad (ha un cattivo sapore) or basically that it sucks (fa schifo). Same when someone is bad/evil, it’s cattivo (”una persona cattiva” = a bad person).
The opposite of bello/a is brutto/a, the ‘ugly’ bad. Also used to describe the weather.
A list of examples:
“Feels good” = sto bene/mi sento bene, che bello, è una bella sensazione
“This pasta is very good!” = questa pasta è buonissima!
“I’m all good, don’t worry” = sto bene, non preoccuparti
“Today the weather is good” = oggi è bel tempo
“Tomorrow there’s gonna be bad weather” = domani sarà brutto tempo
“Bello/a mio/a!” = my friend/buddy (same as “caro/a mio/a” NB! It may feel like an endearing term, but it’s kind of a playful/awkward word to describe someone you love. Reading Nicky call Joe ‘caro’/’bello’ all the time has me laughing, sometimes. It fits since it sounds like something an old man would say, but it doesn’t if the fanfiction is a Modern Setting AU. Anyway, it’s better like this: ‘mio caro’ = darling, basically… still funnily old-fashioned, like our Nicolò. Please never write ‘(il) mio bello’ tho, it’s just an antiquated way to say ‘my boyfriend’ lol)
Here are the links to my previous ‘Italian language for fellow writers’ posts:
