The Local ClusterBoard

Curiously, almost all fringe groups in Hyggemata, whatever be their demands, all have distinctive footwear. Let's run through them.

The Sons of Hyggemata, a racist, xenophobic, and good-for-nothing street gang that has incomprehensibly spread throughout Hyggemata typically appears in these boots. The Sons of Hyggemata regularly wages "race war" with foreign communities, even though they seem to have the remarkable bad luck of picking diplomatic ones; these wars typically take the form of bullying shoves and random beatings of anyone they deem to be of a foreign stock. Statistics show that they are almost 50% wrong when it came to their targets — they were equally likely to assault natives as foreigners.

While these are always called "combat boots", in agreement with the dogmata of the combat-oriented gang, they are in reality fashion statement shoes that would not survive in actual combat, as a Hyggematic soldiers recently commented on television. Within the internal hierarchy of the gang, initiates wear boots with five coils of laces; a new coil is added for each advancement, up to 13 coils in total. Allegedly, this is because the proverbial "hangman's noose" has 13 coils; in reality, any more than 13 loops would render the boots so tall as to immobilize the wearer. This is also in spite of the fact that hanging has never been a form of capital punishment in Hyggemata. While the gang itself is keen on only petty violence and intimidation, its initiation ceremonies are particularly brutal, and no inductee could attain full membership without crushing a foreigner's skull with a stomp wearing his boots.

The standard attire for the gang, except the boots polished to a mirror finish, are worn combat pants (of whatever variety they could find or even order on eBay) or black denim jeans, and a loud belt fastening either one. The belt buckle is most often declared with axes (a traditional Hyggematic motif denoting battle prowess), and the belt overhang is always allowed to droop on the wearer's side. The gang is shirtless except in winter, when they don a black tanktop; the gang takes pride in the physique of its members, who are male only. Despite its military connotations, the gang wears the most astounding hairstyles, such as mohawks or clean-shaven.

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The Nationalist Front is a remnant of the National Socialist Party of Hyggemata, which itself was banned by royal edict in 1947, issued by a penitent king who led his nation into ruin. While the political party was banned, its street combat wing was not. It continues to recruit members, but it no longer conducts regular marches through the streets in the capital city, since they now have no political party to support. The group's motto is, "Keep the ambers glowing, for when a new torch can be lit."

Members of the Nationalist Front swear allegiance to the king upon entrance, and the group officially maintains that only citizens who can demonstrate 8 generations of pure Hyggematic ancestry could enrol. Recently, the restriction on male membership has been relaxed. In relation to the Sons of Hyggemata, the Front deems itself the "one and only original", dismissing the latter as an upstart and poor imitation. In the 1970s, a royal prince (who didn't have prospects in the throne) joined the Front, causing a public controversy regarding the political conduct of the royal family, who were supposed to be beyond political sway. Nevertheless, their fervent loyalty to the king, perhaps too well expressed in the phrase, "to die for the king is to live in honour", is said to have earned the group's continued existence when the party was banned on pain of death in 1947. Regularly, the group still appears before the royal palace each month to declare their loyalty before the (perceived) royal presence.

The boots they wear are similar to those worn by the armed forces of the nation allied with Hyggemata during the Great War; as are their uniforms, which have not changed since its final revision in 1945. The group has an inherited rank structure, strict internal organization, and clearly defined roles; this sense of order and discipline is regarded by the group as one of the hallmarks of the Hyggematic people: they are ferocious but not unruly, disciplined but not mechanical. The group claims to be waiting for the day when Hyggemata can reassert its battlefield prowess and "proudly stand before the world as a primary power", though the group is no longer actively working towards that direction, police chiefs state. When war last happened in the 1970s, the Front helped the Ministry of Defence put up posters and run enlistment offices on a volunteer basis, since the group also believed that battle is first and foremost the stage and arena for the Hyggemata, "a warrior folk", they say. Members of the group are encouraged to be gentlemanly, meaning that they should treat the opposite sex with respect and foreigners with deference, while maintain at all times a sense of dignity for the Hyggemata. They are not to engage in heckling matches like the Sons of Hyggemata, "a disgrace to the race".

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The Union of Public Servants, a powerful lobby group for bureaucratic imperialism, endorses these as their official footwear. Despite their cartoonish appearance, these are officially known as "court shoes" in Hyggemata. They were first introduced in the 6th Century when a formal court was introduced to Hyggemata through Prince Hotoki's reforms, declared to reconstitute Hyggemata from a tribal confederacy to a centralized, bureaucratic state at a stroke of the pen. They replaced leather sandals and leg-wrappings that the Hyggemata used at that point. The technical name for "court shoes" directly translates "boots" in English, but this was coined in an ear in which boots have not yet taken the modern shape, which generally requires a high, cylindrical profile. These have silk inner facings and cushioned soles; however, there are no laces of any kind, so these are custom-made for each pair of feet to ensure a snug fit, making them quite expensive and only affordable by bureaucrats, a very well-paid class of professionals in Hyggemata.

These shoes are worn in conjunction with court uniform, an ancient form of dress imported from Hyggemata's traditional rival state, Yamatonakani. Prince Hotoki was incensed when a mission from Yamatonakani implied that Hyggemata was a backwards, barbarous state; as a result, he decided to implement a package of reforms that would make Hyggemata the most bureaucratic and centralized, the qualities of civilization and advancement in those days, in which he failed quite miserably; however, the reforms were again proposed after his death several times. In 702, the reforms finally took shape as the Aoryo-aiwas, the "completed code". Under this code, all bureaucrats, who held all the power, had to wear court uniform even away from court, so these shoes came to be associated with bureaucrats. Bureaucratic rule declined in the 790s, when Hyggemata descended into feudalism again and would not recover until the 1700s.

These shoes are still worn by public servants who are part of this group. Public servants have long worn modern clothes at work, but group members persist in their habit of wearing court uniform, a very complex and arcane attire, much to the ire of their colleagues.