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kailedger · 4 years

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for all the YOI fanfic author, p.2

Oh wow, let me tell you, I really didn't expect the previous post on Russian culture to blow up ahaha (Here’s the link to it, in case you’re wondering: https://kailedger.tumblr.com/post/621351027189350400/for-all-the-yoi-fanfic-authors) But since it did, I decided to make a part two, sort of? It's not gonna be about mistakes in fanfiction, but more about things English-speaking authors don't mention simply because they don't know they exist.

I’ll give you the general info and then maybe throw some thoughts about how specific YOI characters would relate to that info in my personal opinion.

HOLIDAYS. We have a lot of those TBH, but I'll mention the most important ones - the ones for which we have official days off. I mean, yeah, you can find a list of those in Wikipedia, if you want, but it doesn't actually tell you the reality of things. I've already mentioned the New Year in the previous post, so let’s skip it.

23rd of February is the Defender of the Fatherland Day. It's actually for those who served in the army, but the tradition is to congratulate everyone who's male. Must have something to do with the fact that on 8th of March we have an International Women's Day, when we congratulate everyone who's female. Doesn't really make sense to me, since, you know, there are women in the army too. And a lot of men haven't served a day in their life, what the hell do I have to thank them for? (Here's an example: my dad used to be in the navy, submarine's captain actually, and every year when I congratulate him, he says something along the lines of "Why? There was no war conflict when I served". That's him being humble, but still, the point is there).

ANYWAY! We're not very big on celebrations of these two holidays, most of the time you just give a call to your respective male/female friends and relatives, give flowers to the ladies and just... enjoy your day off?

Next one is the May holidays. Those are usually on the 1-3 of May, the official name (as Wiki states) is "The Day of Spring and Labour". Honestly, no one uses it lol We just say "the first May holidays" (since we also have the second, that's how much we don't wanna work in May; kinda ironic the holiday is called "the day of labour").

You don't congratulate anyone on this day, usually you just have a couple of days off. If we're lucky, the weather would be nice and then people go to the countryside to have a (oh my god, this is gonna be a mouthful) SHASHLYKI. We'll get back to this thing, and you know why? Since if you want someone to embrace the real Russian culture, you would make them go to shashlyki, trust me.

The second May holiday is the Victory Day, and it's kinda... controversial in a way. It is a big celebration for the victory in World War II. Soviet Union suffered a lot during the war with the Nazi Germany, St. Petersburg was under the siege for more than TWO YEARS. And this holiday is both somber and happy since thanks to our ancestors we survived this hell and are now able to live in peace. The celebration is pretty big on official levels - there are military parades everywhere, concerts, people thank the war veterans (there are precious few of them left by now). When I was still in school, they made us visit those parades every year. Guess what? I've never been to a single parade since I graduated. It's not that I don't value the heroism of people who fought in WWII, it's that I think our government uses this holiday to brag how great we are (or, rather, THEY are), 'cause they haven't done anything worth of praise since 1945, which is... depressing, when you think of it. The ridiculous thing is the parade was canceled this year due to coronavirus, but GUESS WHAT? They've used BILLIONS OF DOLLARS to still have it on 24th of June. While the rate of people getting sick is still abnormally high. All because on the 1st of July we're having a vote on the constitution amendments and our government needs an extra boost in patriotism from our people (should I mention some of the amendments are homophobic? Yeah, it sucks).

Well... that was a rant completely offtopic lol. But, you know, this is the opinion of the most people below the age of 35. Also a huge problem here in Russia. Anyway, as I was saying. Used to be a really great holiday where we thanked the veterans and were reminded of the price they paid. Now it's just a sad excuse for the government to waste money sigh

So, a day off. Some fireworks, a hell lot of traffic problems due to parades. Not much else, if you're from the younger generation.

Same thing goes to the 12th of June. Officially a "Russia Day", but since up until the point I graduated from the uni I had summer holidays, I barely even acknowledged the holiday, cause I didn't have to study/work anyway. So like... I lived my whole life here in Russia, and I have no idea why we celebrate this holiday on the 12th of June. I can google it right now, but that kind of would contradict my point here lol.

The last one is on the 3-4 of November. I think it's called something like "Unity Day", but, again, no idea why. Most of the time we just call it "the November holidays" or even "fall holidays". Honestly, most of the time we just care about the days off, especially if the holiday is supposed to be "patriotic". (When I put it like this, we kinda sound like assholes. Probably cause we are lol).

Birthdays mainly depend on the specific person. I used to love my birthdays and it was a big holiday for me when I was a kid, but then I turned 18 and it kinda lost its charm. You still celebrate it, especially if the date is something like 30, 35, 40, 45 and so on. But it gets less and less exciting over the years. I gather my friends at home and just have drinks, my fiance goes to a bar on his birthday. Not very... celebratory, ya know?

So. YOI characters. ALL OF THEM would definitely celebrate New Year. They would probably send some congratulations on 23rd of February and 8th of March. It you think of the Russian rinkmates as friends, they can go the countryside together on the first May holidays, but not actually do anything on the Victory Day (Yakov may attend the parade since he’s from the older generation). Nothing specific to do on 12th of June or November holidays, most likely the rink would be closed, so, like, just a day off.

And now to the important stuff. SHASHLYKI. Oh my god guys, I’m so excited, cause this is one of those things that is AWESOME in Russian culture. And also makes most of the foreigners really confused. But it has some similarities with the American barbeque gatherings, I think.

First of all, many of us live in big cities (like I live in St. Petersburg for example), but we still have countryside houses. Sometimes it’s where our grandparents live, sometimes we buy it specifically. The thing is – we usually go to these places we call “dacha” to have some rest from the noise of the big city and enjoy the fresh air. Usually dachas have gardens, my mom is crazy about all this greenery stuff (I personally don’t see what’s the big deal with taking care of the plants, but I was told it comes with age ;D).

And to enjoy the experience even more we have shashlyki. It’s usually grilled meat (chicken, pork, whichever you prefer) and vegetables, but the process is what makes it really fun. Most families have their own recipes for marinated meat, you prepare it beforehand. Then, on the day, you make some snacks (salted pickles and fresh vegetables come to my mind immediately; pickles are like a must-have, it’s almost an obligatory food since it goes really well with vodka lol). While some of the people sit around the table, have drinks and catch up, there’s usually one person responsible for grilling meat. And this process is very important – it’s gotta be cooked on the brazier with actual flame (or, more like, coals). You put pieces of meat on a metallic skewer and then grill it (I think there’s the word “kebab”, but we usually use it to describe an entirely different meal, so, shashlyk it is). And let me tell you – having a freshly grilled shashlyk with some vegetables and a drink like wine (or vodka if you’re into it) is the best feeling in the world.

So you’re enjoying the fresh air, really tasty meal, have some drinks with family or/and friends. A pretty common thing (not for everyone, but I personally love it) is having someone play the guitar and sing songs around the campfire. The songs we sing are usually either stupid or old, and you would never just casually listen to those on your own, but when the time comes and you sit with the guitar, somehow EVERYONE knows the lyrics. The point is to have fun, not make a concert out of it :)

I actually think that Victor and the rest of the gang would at least try to give Yuuri (and other non-Russians, who knows) this kind of experience. I also headcanon someone (Otabek or maybe Victor himself) knowing how to play the guitar. But I wouldn’t trust Victor with the grilling, honestly, it requires a lot of attention, and… well… you all know what Victor is like ;D

And since we’re on the topic of music, let’s discuss it. Me and a dear friend of mine @clarie-foster, who also happens to be both Russian and a YOI fan, had a lot of headcanons on this.

What you need to know, is when it comes to music, here in Russia we’re pretty flexible. The popular music is the one you can here everywhere, it’s on European and American charts, like, I dunno, Beyonce, Ed Sheeran, Gaga etc. There’s Russian pop-music and, honestly, it sucks lol. Most of the time I listen to it cause it’s dumb and catchy. There are some good artists, of course, I can throw you a couple of name bands like “Ночные Снайперы”, “Сплин”, “Би-2”, but the songs are in Russian, and although the lyrics are pretty damn good, they’re kinda hard to understand if you don’t know the language (I mean, just reading the translation won’t give you the whole experience). And those bands are… depressing? In a way? Not that the songs are extremely dark or something, but you kind of listen to those in a melancholic mood. Me and one of my best friends used to go out on the balcony in summer, sit wrapped in a blanket and listen to those songs. Great experience, if a little sad.

BUT. There’s the old pop-music. We have some of those artists, who were really popular when my parents were young and somehow still popular these days. Their music is honestly average – the tunes might be catchy, the lyrics are mediocre at best, but… when you have a little bit to drink, you get in that mood, where you start singing those old pop-songs. And it’s not like listening to ABBA or, I don’t know, A-ha, since those are classic and still good these days. Russian pop-songs SUCK, they’re horrible, but somehow that is the best kind of music when you’re drunk.

I personally think Victor is one of those people who would totally jam to the old Russian pop. It’s funny, since most of it is from female singers (There’s literally a song from a Russian singer Irina Allegrova called “Go crazy, wild empress”, no kidding). I just can picture him so clearly being drunk and singing those old songs with abandon lol.

Mila would probably join him while laughing hysterically. Georgi too, since he’s a drama queen. And Yuri would make all kinds of disgusted faces.

Two facts which I have never seen being mentioned in fanfiction, which is really weird. So Victor lives in St. Petersburg, as we all saw from those last scenes in the anime (in the background you can see actual places from St. P like our sports stadium). And St. Petersburg is mostly known for two things: bridges and white nights.

WHITE NIGHTS OH MY GOD. I don’t want to go to deep into the details since I don’t really understand the nature of this thing (something to do with sun not really going down? I dunno), but in summer, especially in June and July it basically doesn’t get dark in St. Petersburg. I mean, the sun does go down, you can see the sunset and everything, but the sky stays like… white-grey, almost as though it’s midday, just cloudy. Like we’re in the middle of white nights right now, and the darkest hour is around 1 am, but even then it doesn’t really get dark at all. A lot of people from other cities and countries get confused by it, like, there was this time when Stephen Colbert was a guest on a Russian talk-show and he had a hilarious convo with the host. It was something like this: “So I’ve been in St. Petersburg for one day. It has lasted for 46 hours. Please tell me if the sun will ever go down, ‘cause I’m going crazy”.

For us common people white nights can get really annoying, if your curtains are not black-out, you can have a hard time falling asleep (since, you know, it’s too freaking bright outside). But it’s actually really great for late-night walks and is considered really romantic.

And, speaking of romantic, the bridges! What’s so special about those, you’d think. So St. Petersburg is built on the river Neva – it’s like really big, has a lot of tributaries and distributaries and flows through the whole city. Hence why we have tons of bridges.

And those bridges are drawing bridges, meaning they are separated in the middle by a special mechanism and are being lifted in the air so that the trade ships can pass underneath them. The most impressive one is the Palace Bridge – it’s one of the main sightseeing spots in the city. For most tourists it’s obligatory to visit St. Petersburg and see the drawing of the Palace Bridge. It happens at night, around the time of 1 am or 2 am. It’s really pretty, cause there are lights everywhere, you can see the ships passing by and the view of this huge structure being lifted in the air is really magnificent. Combine it with the white nights and you’ll have one of the most romantic dates you can have here in Russia.

(On the more realistic and depressing note: despite the drawing of the bridges being really beautiful, it’s SUCH a pain in the ass for the regular people. Like, because of the drawing you can’t really get from one side of the city to another. For example, I live in the northern part and if for some reason I couldn’t get to it from the center of the city before the drawing of the bridges, I’m stuck till like 4 or 5 am. Subway only opens at 6 am, and although we have a couple of bridges which never draw, those are on the outskirts of the city, so taking an uber and driving there would cost you a lot of money and also would take like and extra hour or so. Thankfully, the drawing of the bridges lasts only from April to October-November, while the ship navigation on the Neva river is possible).

Last, but not least, SOCIAL MEDIA.

So, like, Instagram is pretty popular in Russia and so is Twitter. But what people rarely mention is our own social media site – Vkontakte (www.vk.com, if you’re interested). It started to become popular in like… 2008, I think? Basically it used to be and knock-off from Facebook, even the color scheme is the same. It became more and more popular over the years, since Facebook was never really a thing in Russia (like, I had a profile there, but I’ve never used it). Now it’s like… if you don’t have a VK profile, it’s super weird lol. I communicate with most of my friends through it, since it has a lot of really cool features: chats, group chats, communities, music, videos and photos. It’s gotten so big that VK even hosts its own music festival each year with a lot of popular Russian artists.

Victor is a social butterfly, so he would definitely have a VK profile. So would Mila, Yuri and Georgi, I personally think most of their communication would be through it. Maybe they would even force Yuuri to create a profile, but he’s not really into social media much, so he wouldn’t really use it.

I think that’s it for now. Like I said, if you have any questions, feel free to ask, I would be happy to answer! ;)

#yoi #yuri on ice #yuuri on ice #victor nikiforov #viktor nikirofov #yuuri katsuki #victuuri #viktuuri #yuri plisetsky #mila babicheva #georgi popovich #and all this russia-related stuff

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brujoenlafrontera · 4 years

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hi!!! I’m a puertorriqueño/nicaragüense enby looking into resources for learning bruja stuff, any good place you know to start?

I’ve gotten a couple of asks about this lately, and i’m so happy to know there are more latinos finding their way to the practice, tumblr’s brujeria tag often gives the impression that theres so little of us out there reclaiming our practices but getting asks like these brings me a lot of faith that thats not true :) first and foremost:

GETTING INTO BRUJERIA IS HARD.

it really is. baby brujos like us know that better than anyone- getting started, is often the hardest part of doing anything, and its no different with brujeria. it can feel so overwhelming and feeling lost is natural. from my experience, although i am still a newbie ive been able to find a lot of information out there, here are the best places to find info, sorted by priority:

FAMILY! a little self explanatory, but brujeria at its best is truly is an inherited, familial practice. If you can, before delving into internet resources, definitely connect w your family if you’re able to and ask them for guidance and about their experiences!

Your family is always the best resource over anything you can find online; theres so much misinformation out there or information not relevant to your region and if someone in your family already has established practices, always trust them first

Do some thinking back to all your cultural traditions, quirks, stories, and superstitions that you’ve learned from your family across time and never thought too much about- and rediscover them under a new light

KEEP IN MIND: brujeria is NOT a singular , concrete practice w concrete rules in itself, the term blankets a lot of traditions across latam, the caribbean, mexico, but imo its always best to stick with brujeria related to your heritage and where your connection is.

this can be hard for people (like me!) with huge family taboos toward brujeria that make it unsafe to ask around about, and/or limitations in family connections (also like me unfortunately). I personally can really only get the tidbits and stories that my family accidentally slips out when I occasionally see them. i try to write them down as much as possible, but the info i can get is limited... and thats where the following comes in.

ONLINE COMMUNITIES. i.e, youtube, tumblr, instagram brujx communities. notice I haven’t said “internet” in general- the reason why i trust community based social media more than random individual websites you find on google is because, in the case of brujeria and honestly any non-european craft, you’re often gonna find a LOT of white people writing blogs, books, etc about their “spiritual experiences” in latam countries and wrongly/incorrectly taking ATR or indigenous traditions (like with smudging). I know, with social media, although those same white people are also on insta and tumblr, it’s a LOT easier to see the face behind the accounts and differentiate who to trust, who’s legit and has real experience to share, rather than a nameless, faceless, website that is actually some colonizer sharing colonized ideas who thinks theyre on a spiritual journey taking traditions all willy nilly. And the fact that in social media, its much easier to find a lot of good brujas at once bc they tend to follow each other lmao.what ive personally done to find information tho is essentially SCOUR tumblrs, insta accs, and watching tons of youtube videos for posts, accounts, videos, etc, and narrowing down good info from there through , namely:

CHECKING WHO YOUR SOURCE IS!!!

ASKING YOURSELF FROM WHAT EXPERIENCE THEYRE SPEAKING FROM

ALWAYS TAKING EVERYTHING WITH A GRAIN OF SALT

AND STICKING TO INFO FROM CULTURES OPEN AND RELEVANT TO ME.

again, brujería is different depending on where your family is from in latam, and if you have an established connection to indigenous and/or black roots, so it’s useful to use keywords relating to that when searching (like if ur black, you can look into ATRs(african traditional religions) which tend to mix deeply with brujeria, if ur indigenous, finding other people from your tribe is great, and if youre not pursuing your already learned traditions you can think about connecting to them more deeply(altho indigenous traditions are their own thing, sometimes they do mix with brujeria too), and apart from familial roots, if ur catholic/christian and/or want to explore it, saint work/catholic brujeria might be a good fit for you!)

tumblr: there are a couple of fantastic brujxs on this site with great blogs and resources who have sadly left the site, but i still go through their posts heavily for spells, rituals, scraps of info! etting started w brujería is hard bc there’s really not that much info out there right now, but i compile as many good brujeria posts i find on my acc.

@brujeria-n-bongs great for catholic brujeria, now at @Upliftherbs on instagram

@brujeria-lost @barberwitch @reina-morada @highbrujita

@naomi121406 is by far the most active and informative tumblr resource ive found, shes an afro-indigenous diaguita curandera from argentina so shes also really helpful if ATRs are in your path!

Im not black myself and dont follow ATRs so i don’t really know many good blogs for afrolatine brujxs out there but if anyone would like to tag some in the replies thatd be awesome!

instagram: Ive found that instagram #brujeria tags has a pretty healthy active stream of posts. You’re gonna have to sift through a lot of them to get to the good stuff though- imo a lot of hispanics use the brujería tag not to mean “latine brujería” but just the spanish word for witchcraft, so a lot of white hispanics will put wicca/neo witchcraft in the tag. imo that’s really not something i’m personally interested in bc it’s not true to brujeria’s traditional nature, is very white/eruropean , and that wicca shit basically just got here. its a relatively a recent thing😭 so i try to stick to bruja accounts that aren’t influenced by that.

youtube: The youtube brujería tag is hit or miss? and again, contains a lot of wicca. But there are some good practitioners on there like The Mexican Witch! You just gonna look around, and dont be afraid to click on videos by really really small youtubers; they often are the ones with the most informative and legit things to say!

Everyone’s path as a bruja/o/x (sjdf trying to be inclusive w gendered language is difficult) is different but here are some topics i think are great to look into as a beginner!

ancestors: start at the bottom and figure out who they are, where theyre from, and set up an altar. it’ll help you a lot with figuring out your identity and path as a bruja later on.

setting up a grimoire

divination: tarot is actually what got me into brujeria at first! tarot isnt strictly traditional and is european in itself but its a wonderful tool for connecting to dieties, saints, etc as well as super fun and helps a lot with introspection

ritual abrecaminos, aka road opening spells!

amarres (love spells... proceed with caution)

limpias, mal de ojo

saint work: even if you’re not catholic (im ex catholic), a growing number of us (especially lgbt latines like @/upliftherbs on instagram) are starting to take back and decolonize our view of saints like La Virgen Maria and removing her from the rigid european/colonized interpretation thats been forced into us

candle spells in general (i fucking love candles tbh, cheap, easy, fun, and WORKS)

spiritual colognes, how to cleanse

finally, here are some helpful posts yall should definitely read and think about moving forward!

about using tumblr as a resource

about looking into brujeria as a part-white part latine

bruja psa + about reclaiming lost indiginety

honestly naomi’s entire brujeria tag is great and super informative for beginners and basically holds answers for almost anything at this point

hope this post helps yall out!

EDIT: oh lord now that this is posted the outline format i tried to use is all kinds of fucked up please dont mind the odd numbering lmfao tumbr hates organized formats

#brujeria #witchblr #POC Witches #witchcraft #baby witch #mine #basics

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wheelygoodteddys · 5 years

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I don't want to do this!:

I absolutely hate writing about religious discrimination!

Frankly, I wish that I wasn't putting fingers to keyboard about any discrimination.

I also desperately don't want the focus to be on discrimination against everything Islamic and Muslim.

However, sadly, it's the most venomous hated that I have ever encountered, second only to racism against the black human beings of our world.

All my life I must have lived under a rock, maybe I live under a rock now, yet the vileness and outright lies that come out of those obsessed with hating all Islam and Muslims, plus anyone who stands up and says this is wrong, is obscene.

I am disgusted in the way these people respond.

I have had differing opinions with both Muslim men are women yet been addressed with respect and politeness. They are peaceful and not intimidating in any way.

Speak to a person who is anti Muslim, they refuse to listen to anything that may contradict what they want to believe, they will call you a liar and slander you. They intimidate and bully, call you names, question your mental stability, stalk your FB and target your children. The insults and illogical reasoning is unbelievable.

I am horrified that there are people like this in the world!

More horrifying still is for once I can see the appeal in hating the West.

Imagine a young Muslim man, born here, and rather then allowing him to explain what his religion means to him, to try and teach people, that hate everything about him, that he deserves to be not discriminated against, he gets told what his religion is, he is called a murder, a terrorist, a paedophile, a Mysoginist, etc. His sister is spoken to about her husband beating her, being oppressed, asked if she still has her clitorus, threatened with physical abuse, has her hijab torn off, threatened with rape, told she is a bad mother because she sells her baby girls to be raped by old men.

And no matter what they say to try and explain their actual beliefs the abuse flows. And this is from their own countrymen.

Mate, I would want them all gone too! Be honest, who wouldn't!?

Yet if they report abuse or complain about their treatment they are accused of wanting to change things. "They come here and try to change everything", is the cry from the haters!

1) There is NO law that insists that ALL women wear a Burqa in Saudi Arabia: Hijab is only compulsory for Muslim women. Anything else is a choice for those in a practicing Muslim family.

2) Women are not allowed to get an education in Saudi Arabia: I urge you to look up any TV broadcast from local Saudi Arabia telecasts. Women, in hijab, reading the news. This suggests an education. However, both men and women are encouraged to gain knowledge in Islam.

3) WTF does Saudi Arabia have to do with every other Muslim world wide, especially in Australia?

4) FGM (female genital mutilation) is an Islamic practice: Far from it! The Islamic religion urges that both men and women enjoy sex and that a man sexually pleases his wife. FGM is a tribal practice. However, MGM (male genital mutilation) has and still is widely practiced in Australia.

5) There is NO "no go" zones in Australia!: This urban myth was started by a female, Canadian Islamphobe. It was said to be proved when the police removed her from Lakemba for disturbing the peace. The police weren't working for the Muslims to enforce their "no go" zones! How ridiculous. Others tell totally unbelievable stories about women walking there and being spat on for not wearing hijab. Firstly, not all Muslimah wear hijab, even in Lakemba. Also there are numerous non-Muslims that go to these fabled areas to eat, visit, shop, do business, etc. This rumor is absolutely ludicrous!

6) Muslim women are oppressed, even here in Australia!: It is naive that there is no abusive people in any religion or walk of life, however, Muslimah are not oppressed as perf the usual course. Quiet the opposite! Historically, and as it is today, Muslimah have the freedom to do and be whatever they want, just like Muslim men. There is no distinction between what male and females can do. In fact, men are encouraged to wash their own clothes, cook and do housework. Also the Qur'an makes it very clear that the mother is the head of the household.

7) It is always claimed that Muslims want to change things: Yet, the question, "what have they actually changed?", goes unanswered. Muslims are required to live by the laws of the land, and as such, really don't want to change anything but the way they are treated. Especially how the women are treated. Our hero Islamphobes always target women and children because Muslimah are more recognizable.

8) Why are these people so threatened by the hijab or niqab?: For fuck sake it's a piece of material! It's not what's on a woman's head that oppresses her. However, who are those that want to oppress Muslimah? Muslim men or the Islamphobe? I say without hesitation, the Islamphobe! They don't ask a Muslim women how she feels, they don't ask what she may want to wear. They rarely comprehend the meaning of the hijab to a woman but rather try to twist it into some sexually perverse. They proclaim that Muslim women shouldn't wear a head covering. As Australia is a free country, with a freedom of religion and freedom of lawful individually, the real oppression and discrimination, is telling Muslim women what to wear.

9) Telling Muslim women what they are: The idea that, to Islamphobes, Muslim women are stupid and therefore, don't know that they are oppressed, would have to be the most Mysoginist slap in the face ever! All I can say is, "at least Muslim men know a woman's worth is awesome".

10) Muslim men marry girl babies of 5 to 6 years old and Muslim mothers allow it: Firstly, American is the place booming in child brides at the moment. With some states having no minimum age for marriage and also no divorce for women. Compared to Malaysian Clerics, years ago, raising the age of concent to 18. Also contrary to European/western/Christian culture, women have been granted divorce since the 700s in Islam.

11) Women wear the Burqa in Australia: This is actually one of those urban myths, started by Pauline Hanson. To see a Burqa in Australia would be very unusual. Most Australian Muslimah are from cultures that don't don the Burqa. The Burqa is an Afghan tradition and is very rare in Australia. Then why fight "ban the Burqa"? In one word, principle! It is against a woman's basic rights to tell her how much she can or can't wear, within the laws of public decency. There is also a security argument, as a Burqa is rarely worn that argument is rather moot.

12) Muslim men have lots of wives and children and just live on welfare: This is so silly that it's laughable. Once again, it is rare for Muslim men to have more than one wife these days as it is financially impractical. Also most Muslim men prefer one wife. In Australia, on average, the Muslim family consists of 2 children. With all this being said, usually Muslim men and women are educated and professional people. If not they strive to own businesses. The stupid welfare claims are unfounded and actually go against most Muslim traditions and cultures that have a hard work ethic.

13) They come here are get more welfare than Australians with no waiting period: This information can be researched on government websites. There is a waiting time for new Australians, Muslim or otherwise, which often means charitable families that sponsor them and take them in during this time. When they do receive any benefit, before getting on their feet, it is no more or less than anyone else.

14) They receive a thousand dollar iPhone and designer clothes as soon as they arrive: Is this one even worth answering? I just shake my head in disbelief!

15) Muslims have been Australians for generations: It amazes me how many people actually believe that no Muslim is Australian born. The history of the Islamic people in Australia predates white colonization. Islamic men from Indonesia travelled down and through Australia. There was intermarriage with the Indigenous peoples and even revertion to Islam by some. A more constant move to Australia, by those of the Islamic faith, started in the 1800's.

16) All Muslims are the same because they read from the same book: this is like saying that all Christian denominations are the same because they read from the same book. Most know that this is not the case.

There are many different varieties of Muslim. Yes they have the Qur'an yet addition books vary between the sects.

There are 72 different sects, numerous sects within the main sects, different traditions, different cultures, different regions, different regions, different countries and different families.

As for the Qur'an: there is the subject context, further context, overall context, historical context and spiritual context. Then all the different ways it is interpreted. Also interpretation can be manipulated and cherry picked to suit an agenda or bias. This can be said of the Bible also.

Where interpretation is important is in the understanding of Arabic. To translate a language as complex as Arabic into simple English leaves the meaning truly lacking.

For example: Islam is a very sexually moral religion. Men and women are not meant to sexulise each other, There is no unsupervised dating and dressing is modest. However, it is commonly thought the men will receive a bus load of virgins to have an orgy with in paradise. However, "virgin" more correctly translates to "pure". This is a "spiritual" context and "heavenly beings/angels is probably a better translation into English.

17) Muslims want to kill all Jews and Muslims. The Qur'an tells them to kill all Christians: Unfortunately people are so off the mark on this one. Islam actually says that Muslims cannot destroy a place of worship nor hurt religious "ministers". The Qur'an refers to Christians and Jews as the "people of the book". In fact, the only other women a Muslim man is permitted to marry is either a Christian or a Jew. The wives of these two religions are also not expect to revert as they are seen as sisters to Islam. Christian and Jewish men and women are thought of as brothers and sisters to Muslims.

There is a long list of urban myth, propaganda, rumors and out right lies that are used as ammunition against Islam and Muslims.

The arrogance of the Islamphobe is to tell a Muslim what their faith is! With no other religion would a person, outside that faith, verse another in their religion.

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retrauxpunk · 4 years

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Rain, I ask you: ALL the quarantine asks!

Animated character that was your gay awakening? not really an ‘awakening’ so much as a ‘hint’, but Azula from Avatar: the Last Airbender ... yep

Grilled cheese or PB&J? GRILLED CHEESE

What show/YouTube video(s) do you put on in the background when you when you don’t have anything to watch but you want something on? I don’t really experience this mood, but my go-to watch is the vlogbrothers YouTube channel

Your go-to bar order, if you drink? if it’s a low-key/work outing, lager or cider (esp the ones with non-apple fruits too); if it’s getting more serious (lol) or with closer friends or a more celebratory mood: vodka with sparkling apple juice

What’s your favorite pair of shoes that you own? these Doc Martens that are white with red hearts got ’em with my first ever full time design job paycheck. i did not take care of them well so they’re super scuffed/beat-up and very much not Perfectly White ... but they’re still comfy as heck, i still love the design, and they’ve lasted 3 years so far, let’s see how much longer we can make it ... also i think they’re a limited edition so i likely won’t get my hands on any replacements...

Top three cuisines? my cheap-ass answer would be, like: East Asian, South-East Asian, Western European ... but my non-shit answer is... Japanese, Chinese, Italian (ftr i’m not a seafood fan ... i just love the ramen and non-seafood stuff that japan makes hehe)

What was your first word as a child (that wasn’t a variation of “Mom” or “Dad”)? i have no clue

What’s a job that you’ve had that people might be surprised to find out you’ve had? cold-calling strangers to ask them to do market research phone surveys (y)

Look up. What’s directly across from you? the kitchen

Do you own any signed books/memorabilia in general? i have a messenger bag that i got signed by Jeph Jacques of the Questionable Content webcomic that i once adored ... and I think my boyfriend has gifted me a signed Matthew Reilly hardcover.

Preferred way to spend a rainy day? curled up indoors wearing something cosy, reading and eating something delicious. playing animal crossing lol. aaaaand listening to music, a good podcast, watching stand-up comedy, drawing, getting intoxicated...

What do you get on your bagels? What WOULD you get if you had access to anything you wanted? occasionally the standard smoked salmon and cream cheese, but i slightly prefer the meat to be, like, prosciutto

Brunch or midnight snacks? ehh fuck it, both???? both!!

Favorite mug you own easter limited edition waitrose mug, squat and round and yellow, painted/shaped like a very round chick. a Borb,,,,

What coffee drink would you describe yourself as? i actually thought about this and, uh, peppermint mocha. not for everyone, slightly weird, never fitting in with the regulars/being a default, but???? obviously awesome?? also: about 65% on the mainstream/hipster scale

Pick a song lyric to describe your current mood (and drop the name and artist!) The Wombats is the artist. lyrics are either “Let's dance to Joy Division / and celebrate the irony / Everything is going wrong, / but we're so happy” from Let’s Dance to Joy Division or “the edge of nowhere’s such a beautiful place” from Emoticons

Fruity or herbal teas? herbal but i agree with @queenofslime, black tea is the best

What’s that one TV show that you’re a little bit embarrassed to watch but you still like nonetheless? ...do i experience embarrassment about what i like to watch on TV? i don’t know if i do, because i watch relatively few shows ... and have relatively little shame? maybe???

That book you were forced to read for class but actually ended up enjoying? ftr i wasn’t bitter about this before reading, i had no preconceived biases against, and i was pretty open to liking it -- The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri

Do you match your socks? if they’re of a really nice design then yes always, if they’re of a more standard/generic design then ... not necessarily

Have you ever been horseback riding? yes a few times ... on the last time which was like five years ago ... the lady said i was a natural and asked if i’d ridden much before, which was. flattering. and yes this is a Brag.

What was your “phase” when you were younger? (i.e., Mythology Nerd, Horse Girl, Space Geek, etc) didn’t have much of a hardcore phase but i was pretty much always into fantasy ... oh wait yeah i did! i had a spy phase :)

Have you ever been to jail? to closed-down ones, yep

What’s your opinion on Lazy Susan’s (the spinning tray in the middle of tables)? pretty great idea unequivocably, right?

Puzzles? i tend to enjoy riddles/lateral thinking puzzles, i am impartial about jigsaw puzzles. i enjoy escape rooms.

You can only have one juice for the rest of your life, what is it? apple ... but elderflower if i’m feeling reckless (y)

What section do you immediately head for when you walk into a bookstore? young adult ... or stationery

What’s one thing you’re trying to learn/relearn in your downtime right now? Russian language :( it’s going не так хорошо

Who’s your go-to musical artist when you’re feeling upbeat? not sure if i have a go-to artist so much as go-to playlists i’ve made but some good ones are The Wombats and Bastille

Where could someone find you in a museum? mammals/birds in natural history

What’s that one outfit in your closet you never get the chance to wear but want to? i swear i was talking about this recently but i clean the fuck forgot what it was ... oh yeah, i have this short-sleeved black minidress festooned with silver buckles/buttons and also featuring decorative suspenders ... which, yes, does make me look like a sexy military officer,,, anyway it’s pretty badass and somehow it hasn’t occurred to me till now that i can just wear that every day now if i want? ftw i do get the chance to wear it, it’s just a little bit Extra so i get self-conscious. i’ve worn it a few times though. including to work. because fuck it, right? i didn’t become a graphic designer to be shy about sometimes looking like a prototypical emo/scene kid-turned-adult??? (ftr i was never an actual emo/scene kid. i lacked the requisite guts, commitment of feeling, and permissive parents.)

Rainbows, stars, or sunset colored clouds? sunset-coloured clouds :)

If you could own any non-traditional pet (dogs, cats, fish, rodents, etc), what would it be? how about a shapeshifting feathered dragon that could range from, like, two thirds of a foot long (20cm) to sit on your shoulder, to ... the size of a massive draft horse? (but longer and thinner)

Do you have more art on your walls or more photographs? photos, though if i didn’t live with a partner, it might be art

You have to get one meme tattooed on your body, what meme is it and where does it go? i’ve already got a meme tattooed on my body ... a private meme i have with my boyfriend, one on each leg (left: outer side, just above knee; right: outside, a few inches above the ankle)

Pick a superhero sidekick to hang out with ?????? is this a sidekick to a known superhero, or a superhero to act as your sidekick? also i don’t know? who are the standard heroes? i’m not up to date on this.

Lakes, rivers, or oceans? rivers or oceans

Favorite mid-2000s song i can’t decide a favourite, it’s too stressful, but one that i like is Rob Thomas’s Little Wonders

How do you dress when you’re home alone? either a t-shirt and PJ pants, or a dress (usually short-sleeved/sleeveless minidress)

Where do you sit in the living room (we all have a preferred spot, and you know it)? on either side of the couch haha

Knives or swords? BOTH but ok swords.

A song you didn’t think you’d enjoy but ended up loving hmmmmm like all of Linkin Park’s first three albums with some exceptions? hahahah

Pick an old-school Disney Channel Original Movie i don’t think i.....know any????

Are you a “Quote that relates to the photos” caption-er, an “explanation of where I took the photos” caption-er, or a no caption kinda person when you post pictures online? explanation, though on instagram quite often the photo and caption are unrelated

Name a classic Vine there’s only one thing worse than a rapist...

What’s the freezer food that you stock up on when you go to the grocery store? dumplings! as in the gyoza type.

How do you top your ice cream? that ‘magic’ chocolate sauce that hardens into chocolate. that stuff. i watched those ads all childhood long but my parents were immigrants and therefore very thrifty so we NEVER bought it iirc and then in my adulthood i got it a bunch of times. but now i live in the uk and can’t find it. and forgot it existed. and have never seen it anywhere.

Do you like Jello? the kind that’s served on a plate as a dessert? meh. the kind that are found in asian grocery stores as individual fruit-flavoured serves in little plastic cups? YES

What’s something that you don’t have a picture of that you wish you did? future stock prices? LOL ... or i’m gonna go with @queenofslime‘s answer again -- how others see me. it’s a great answer.

How are you at climbing trees? not............ good. i mean, i like climbing, but i have absolutely terrible upper body strength. i did bouldering for a couple months but only stuck to the first like... three out of nine difficulty levels.

#thanks!! hehe #quarantine asks #queenofslime #asks

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princessamericachavez · 6 years

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How is living in Europe while being latine? I want to get my master's degree (in the future) somewhere around Europe because there are more choices for what I've chosen as my career, but it's also scary at the same time, being in a foreign country by yourself and all that. Do you have any advice on it? Any wisdom for your fellow latines?

Hey, sorry it took this long to reply, it’s been kind of a crazy week haha.

Okay so first and foremost I don’t think you should be scared to live here as a latine. There’s actually a rather big latine community here, as far as I have seen. Now, to be fair, I live in Barcelona which has two advantages: 1. Spanish language. 2. Big cities usually equal a big multicultural mix.

In the time I’ve been living here, I’ve met and hung out with argentinians, colombians, peruvians and mexicans, you also see them (and hear them mostly because accents) in the streets, the metro, the shops, the restaurants. We are everywhere. The amount of argentinians didn’t really hit me until the World Cup was going on and I joined some friends to watch the match at a sports bar and around 300 people gathered to shout and cheer and celebrate together. The small peruvian restaurant right below my house is family owned and was also the meeting point for them as they celebrated their first World Cup in decades.

My point is, we are everywhere and you can find us and it is beautiful. Europe is rather multicultural and colorful and exciting and I think doing a masters here is always a fun way to broaden your horizons.

When I’ve gone to other countries around here I’ve never found any issues with existing as a latine there either. At least no more issues than you’d find anywhere else in the world.

There’s always going to be closed minded and bigoted people that believe their nationality/race/money makes them automatically better than others, and we should always be watchful and aware that we still exist in this world as people of color (even though that fact can be easy to forget when you live in a latine country and everyone around you is technically poc too, coming to Europe certainly makes you more aware of your non-whiteness in both good and bad ways).

Some Cons of living in Europe as a latine?

People will act like you’re always too loud. We kinda are, but not that much, you know?

Most europeans have no idea how to dance at clubs the way we do.

The Food. You’ll miss your local food so much. Even if you find a good restaurant, there’s a chance it’ll be like texmex or a weird version of the food you know and love twisted to fit european blander taste standards.

Tourists. Ugh.

The odd racist european old person that acts like you come form an uncivilized country and say stuff like “well I don’t know how they do things there but here…”

The odd racist european young person who will either call you “exotic” or think it’s funny to ask if in your country you have cars/tvs/internet. Yes. Yes, I’ve actually heard this question a lot, though more so 5-10 years ago and thankfully the internet has drastically slowed that kind of ignorance.

“Oh so is it like in Narcos? I love that show!” And other forms of glorifying latinamerican violence and stereotyping us based on that kind of media.

Generally, most of this things would probably happened in other places of the world too. Like I said above, living in Europe after having lived in a latinamerican country mostly makes you that much more aware of your roll as a nonwhite people. You are suddenly not seen as the standard. Even white-passing peeps might find people’s attitudes change once they hear you speak in your own accent.

If you’ve lived abroad or were born in a non-latine country, maybe you’ll already have experienced all this things, in which case Europe will probably not be that different for you.

Oh, also people here are like super sold out in the “first world countries are safe” thing and like they are so sure no one’s gonna steal anything from them and the government/police will always be on their side and I mean technically it’s nice but as a latine it feels just very naive?

Shit, also the coin change. Life here can be rather expensive, especially if you’re not earning in euros. I try not to think how much everything I pay would be in pesos because “el que convierte no se divierte”.

Pros of living in Europe as a latine:

Because people can’t dance here, suddenly you’re seen as the most coordinated and fun person in the club even if you were just an average dancer for your latine friends’s standards.

The Food. You might miss your food, but oh god the local things here are so good too. Coffee is delicious and strong, bread is so good pretty much anywhere here, wine is great, they have great chocolate, and like italian food? fondue? spanish rice? german sausages? all good. Oh, also beer!

The culture: old stuff, museums, new stuff, book presentations, street concerts, galleries, etc. So much culture.

The safety. Like, dude, the safety. I know I literally just called europeans naive, and I still kinda think they are, but bro being able to walk home at night as a woman is fucking surreal to me??? Like, you still have to be vigilant and watch out for pickpocketers and stuff but there’s a sense of calm and safety in walking in the streets here that really eases the ever present underlying vigilant state we are used to as latines. It’s just nice.

Public transportation??? Buses are nice and not cramped to inhumane levels? The metro is awesome to move from one side of town to the other in minutes? The trains get you to other places of the country in like no time and they are so much fun! I just love european public transportation, especially coming from a town where you need a car to get pretty much anywhere.

Education is great and at a very high level and if you’re planing to come here to study I’m sure you’ll have a wonderful experience and learn a lot and yeah clases here are often more demanding but it’s generally so cool and you get to learn from a perspective from a whole other side of the world in topics you love.

The people are great and nice and welcoming (excluding the odd assholes mentioned above). I’ve always felt welcomed here, people are really interested about hearing about your culture, your food, your country, your customs. Almost everyone is willing to help you get around, find your way in town and enjoy their city as your own.

Most bigger european cities are very multicultural and the people who live in them are used to this, so they are ready to welcome outsiders into their lives and usually open to listen to all kinds of points of view in life.

Okay, so this just got very long and ramble-y and I realize I’m probably not making that much sense, so here’s the last thing I’ll say:

It is an experience. It has good and bad sides, like everything else, but in the end coming here to study —in a place that’s so different to your own in culture and history— is a crazy adventure in which you’ll discover more about the world and, more importantly, more about yourself. I understand doubt and fear when it comes to a decision like this, it’s a big choice after all, but my advice in the face of fear is always this: be brave, take a chance, let yourself live it and enjoy it and face the good and the bad. Whatever your experience is, you’ll grow from it. That’s what it’s all about.

#sofia's nonsense #jeez this got long and confusing and I'm sorry lmfao #dreamsofgoldandbooks

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dramallamadingdang · 6 years

Text

Question Meme: The Run-on Sentence Edition

Hi! I hurt myself again yesterday. No, not in an "self-harm" kind of way but more in the usual (for me) "mountain-climbing incident" sort of way (I hate scree; I was so close to that summit) and got lots of deep bruises and lacerations for my troubles and was in a world of hurt by the time I saw a doctor, and I cracked something that isn't supposed to be cracked and it all hurts enough that I got prescribed narcotics again for a week and I really, really hate narcotics but I really, really like to be able to breathe without feeling like my lungs are being ripped to shreds, so...narcotics it is.

It might make the answers to this latest iteration of Ye Olde Question Meme rather entertaining, though. Maybe. Maybe just incoherent. Well, whatever, @nekosayuri tagged me, so it's her fault, and I'm bored and my sleep schedule's all outta whack and I haven't even turned on my Simming computer in like three days and am posting this from a non-Simming laptop, so I have nothing else to post and....yeah. So, I'm like high as a kite right now. I mean, it's not totally unusual because I live in Colorado and weed's legal here, but narcotics is a totally different and much less coherent high for me. So, like, fair warning.

I'm not tagging anyone, though. I've no idea who's done this lately...

Name: Katrina

Zodiac Sign: I don't know why I answer this because astrology is a huge crock of BS, but everyone always wants to know so...Taurus. Barely. (Birthday is April 23.)

Height: Still ~6'0"/~182cm. Yay, not shrinking yet!

Languages Spoken: Fluently? At this point, only English. I used to be pretty fluent in Italian and German, but, you know, the saying "use it or lose it" applies, and since I've not had occasion to use those languages much....Well, there we are. I could speak quite a bit of Russian at one time because I spent a chunk of years there, in the late 80s when it was the Soviet Union and shortly thereafter when things were sorta nuts there. But, again, I have lost much of what I once knew. And there are smatterings of other languages that I can speak mostly-useless bits of. I can ask where the restroom is in many languages because I've traveled a lot. :) I do speak fluent bullshit, though...

Nationality: 'Murican. And since 'Muricans are really, really into their "ancestry" for some bizarre-o reason because ‘Murican apparently isn’t good enough...Like, 95% dirty Welsh peasantry (plus some Irish and Scottish thrown in for flavor) on the paternal side and on the maternal side....Well, one of my great-grandfathers was a first cousin of the English Queen Victoria. So basically, my maternal ancestry is the very confused inbred multinational mutt that is European Aristocracy. God only knows what’s in their genes, though my particular bit of it has lots o’ German.

Favorite Fruit: Okra. It is a fruit. Look it up. Then again, much of what people call "vegetables" is, in fact, fruits, so there's that.

Favorite Scent: I've never really thought about this except when this was a question on a previous iteration of this meme that I did, and I don't remember what answer I came up with then. So I'm just gonna say...Vanilla-scented candles. Not cheap ones that just smell sickly-sweet sort-of-vanilla-y, but these ones that I buy online that smell...well...NOT sickly-sweet and like how vanilla really smells. Alternatively...snickerdoodles when they're baking. Hubby is baking me some snickerdoodles as I speak. Type. Whatever. The house smells really good. Baking bread is good, too. Before the snickerdoodles, hubby was baking the twice-weekly loaf of sourdough.

Favorite Color: Green. And/or orange. I go back and forth about which is really my favorite.

Favorite Animal: Elephants. Or hyenas. Or cats of all shapes/sizes. Or alpacas. Or llamas. Or snakes. Or spiders of all kinds. Or dragonflies. Or...Um, yeah, I'm pretty much a fan of all vertebrates and terrestrial invertebrates and some aquatic/oceanic invertebrates, too, so...take your pick.

Coffee, Tea, or Hot Chocolate? Hot chocolate all the way. I don't drink coffee because A) I think it tastes and smells disgusting, but even if that wasn't the case B) I can't have caffeine. Tea is OK. Hubby's way into herbal tea, grows/collects and dries herbs and makes his own blends and shit, and I'll drink it mostly to make him happy, but I'm not into it. I do like hot chocolate, though it's hard to find premade mixes that don’t have powdered milk in them (because I’m vegan), so I generally have to make it from scratch, so to speak, and when I do I use cashew milk as the base and I usually add either peppermint or vanilla extract for zing.

Favorite Fictional Character: Can't really pick a fave. So, have a list, probably but perhaps not really in preference order. Spock from Star Trek, who's been a fave of mine since I was 3 and was watching the original Trek in its initial run, and I announced I'd marry Spock one day. Rodney McKay from Stargate: Atlantis and Vala Mal Doran from Stargate SG-1. (Basically, if you cut up those two and glue various bits of their characters together -- and not necessarily their good bits -- you have...me. So I relate really well to both of them, so I like 'em.) Also Jack O'Neill from Stargate SG-1, but he's mostly for reasons of estrogen. (Especially if you stick 'im in dress blues. HUBBA!) Garak from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine because Cardassians Are Love. Jayne from Firefly, also for reasons of estrogen. Big, hairy, dark hair, blue eyes, solid but not too muscle-y...Yep, that's how I likes my men. And Zoe from Firefly, 'cuz OMG she's how I likes my women. HUBBA!

Dream Trip: *sigh* Still Antarctica. It's the only continent I've not been to, and I will get there before I croak, but...not yet.

When was your blog created? IIRC, it was, like, the middle of December 2013. So, I'll have had this thing 5 years soon.

Last Movie You’ve Seen: I couldn't sleep one day like a week ago, so I put on Miss Congeniality, which is one of my favorite movies because Michael Caine. When I can't sleep, I'll usually put on a really familiar movie or TV show and it lulls me to sleep, but it didn't work that time. :(

Song You’ve Had on Repeat: Englishman in New York, by Sting. I have no idea why, but it's been on repeat in my head, though I haven't actually played it lately or anything.

Favorite Candy: Not much of a sweets kind of person. I prefer salty-crunchy. I can eat a whole big bag of crisps (Like, the British ones, which are way better than American potato chips, but American ones will do) easily, but I can't even get through a whole candy bar because, ew, too sweet. That said, I do like Flake bars, but I have to go up to Canada to get 'em. Or else buy 'em online but then usually by the time I get them they're kinda smashed. Or melted. Or both. Better to go up to Canada. Where they have real chocolate and not this sickly-sweet Hershey's crap. *shudder*

Favorite Holiday: When in Canada, Canada Day is quite fun. It's like July 4th only not so...well...chest-beatingly, yahoo-y, "patriotic" 'Murican. (I really, really dislike nationalism and "patriotism" in general but especially the obnoxious 'Murican brand of it.) When in the UK, I have a fondness for Guy Fawkes Night. I guess I like fire and fireworks and things that go boom and shit, only without the "YAY AMERICA!" yelling of America's own "things that go boom" holiday. Other than that...Can't really say I'm into 'em much. They're not even "days off from work" since...Well, I've never had a "real job," and I'm pretty much retired from my unreal job these days.

Last Book You’ve Read: *cough* Does a really long and smutty and slashy Stargate: Atlantis fanfic count? I'm sad to say that, though I was a voracious reader of books when I was younger, I'm really not so much these days. Haven't been for the last decade or so, really. Not of actual books, at least. I do subscribe to and read a number of academic journals, some having to do with science and medicine and some having to do with history, but they're not books.

Favorite TV Show: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, mostly because it has Cardassians, who are all uniformly awesome, plus all the gritty political and religious goodness and stuff. Except that its last season kinda sucked and did totally WTF things with my second-favorite Cardassian. Close runner-up would be Stargate: Atlantis. Except that its last kinda season sucked, too, and did totally WTF things with McKay, so hmmm. Stargate SG-1 is good, too, except that half its team annoys the piss outta me...although this is largely made up for by the hotness that is Jack O'Neill so there's that. I like Firefly a lot but it was so short-lived that it's hard to really be a favorite because I can watch the whole thing, including the movie, in less than a day. (And believe me. I have.) I like the other Star Treks, too, especially if I'm in the mood for the "goofy soap opera in space" that is Voyager. TNG's shiny-happy Roddenberryness kinda bores the piss outta me, though it does have a few really good episodes, and the original show...Hmmm...Well, I both love and hate it. I love Spock, as I said, and I also love McCoy and all of its secondary characters. The problem is that I hate Kirk. Like, viscerally hate him. Like, I want to punch his face in every time it's on-screen. If he'd just, y'know, been eaten by a salt vampire and Spock and everyone else was OK and went off and had cool space adventures battling giant space-going amoebas and shit, I'd be totally happy and that's what fanfic's for *cough*, but since Kirk doesn't get eaten by a salt vampire...well...

Who’d You Most Like to Have Lunch With? @holleyberry :) Dude, we should totally hook up (No, not THAT way!) when I'm in SoCal next. Which won't be soon if I have my way, but when I am there....

#non sims #meme #question meme

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smarmykemetic · 7 years

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I'm really interested in bastet and sehkmet but like I'm white and I'm concerned I'm over stepping a line or something, also I've been looking into witchcraft and I've been talking to my friends who are witches and I really like how individualized it is

Ok so, re: being white and worshipping kemetic gods- long story short is, it’s okay because it’s a dead religion and the ancient Egyptians who made this religion theirs were imperialistic and wanted everyone to follow their religion anyways, back when they were still kicking.

Short story long is: since the religion and the culture died out a couple thousand years before the recent ancestors of our current culture -the ones that speak European languages and worship the Christian God- went around stomping out all the other languages and cultures and gods, it’s not actually mocking a people who are currently in diaspora for white people (and other non-Egyptian people, generally speaking) to worship those gods. It doesn’t cause breathing people actual harm or insult to do so; in fact, modern-day Egyptians often play up this aspect of their past because it generates tourism revenue.

Secondly, the worship of Kemetic deities was never a closed practice; you didn’t need to get initiated or be a part of a certain tribe to worship them. The ancient Egyptians’ attitude toward their religion being taken up by others was more similar to a modern Evangelical than a feeling that someone was taking something that was “theirs” and perverting or misusing it. The Egyptians saw themselves as the best people in existence, and thought everybody else would be cooler if they would be more like them, and holier if they worshipped their gods. Hell, if they could force you to worship their gods, they would; political and religious transgressions were basically synonymous in their society, and like all imperialist nations, they wanted as much territory, resources, and people to manage said territory and resources, as possible.

For cultural appropriation to be harmful it needs to be not just “member of group A does something traditionally from member of group B”; group A has to be oppressing group B, which usually involves group B not being able to safely access their own culture without some kind of consequence from group A in the first place (think of how Black people can lose their job over their natural hair, but white people will try to make fake dreads or braid their hair in cornrows or claim to have ‘afros’ to be trendy). I think it would be dangerous assumption to say that no one ever will get offended by a white kemetic practitioner, or even that no modern-day Egyptian will. But for these reasons, it’s generally not considered Cultural Appropriation in the way that, say, a white American claiming to be possessed by a Wendigo, or someone with no understanding of an Eastern religious symbol using said symbol as decoration to feel vaguely “more spiritual” or something.

Bastet and Sekhmet are both awesome, though I don’t work with them personally. Here’s Seek’s kemetic directory which will include links to Tumblr bloggers who worship them; here are Bastet’s and Sekhmet’s Henadology pages; and here are some trustworthy Kemetic FAQs (x x) and a handy starter guide.

Hell yeah, witchcraft is personalized, and that’s what makes it so fun! I’m a chaote, so I literally just do whatever feels right. Jars for curses, sigils and ‘programs’ for wards, a handful of superstitions I picked up or made up throughout life in the Bible Belt (for example it’s bad luck for me and a handful of friends to walk on opposite sides of a pole when we walk together, a superstition nobody I’ve ever explained it to understands but that I still follow downright religiously), and whatever looks cool from the internet is worth a shot. I’ll sometimes write my intent on a piece of regular paper, tear it into confetti, and use it as I would the herb or incense for that intent. So on, so forth. Of course you can choose a certain paradigm or set of correspondences to use if you want, but that’s just a couple of examples.

#cultural appropriation #bastet #sekhmet #witchcraft #magic #this ask is just a bunch of random things all thrown together enjoy #Anonymous

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ad-ciu · 6 years

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Of Gods and Mice: Cernunnos

So, taking a break from editing my papers, today I am continuing with my examination of the presentation of ‘Celtic’ Deities within High-Rez Studio’s Smite. As always for these examinations, these are not intended to be disparaging comments towards the game or the developers, but instead looking at how the general public is imagining these entities, how they are approaching them, and what sort of resources do they seem to be using.

Today, we are looking at Cernunnos who is always a bit curious to look at due to the treatment he receives despite leaving an exceptionally sparse archaeological record. His page can be found here. He is given the divine function of The Horned God. So, let’s get to this.

So, the divine function as The Horned God is decent. His name has a root with the Gaulish word for Horn, but past this we know very little about Cernunnos. We only have the name inscribed once, upon The Pillar of the Boatmen, and this has lead to the very interesting conclusion that we don’t actually have any evidence that the various deities depicted with antlers across continental Europe are necessarily the same entity. Similarly to how Teutates was misidentified as a singular entity, there is some degree of suspicion that the interpretation of these entities all as being the Pillar-Cernunnos is potentially an over-assumption. We do have depictions of Horned-Entities on a wide geographic scale in Europe, though zero presence in Ireland which is always interesting. A large number of depictions of these entities are on coinage which has lead to some suspicion of a Prosperity or Wealth function rather than the earlier assumption of Wilderness, Hunt, or Animals being the primary Divine Function of this/these entity/entities.

But, his lore. As I mentioned with Artio, we have zero records of any Gaulish mythological tradition. They most certainly had some, but it did not survive in an accessible for for ourselves. However, Cernunnos has been adopted into several modern day religious movements, and is given a place of importance within numerous revivalist movements, which has resulted in a great degree of confusion over information about him. The historical record we have for Cernunnos is absolutely void short of interpretations of a few artistic depictions to the point that, as I mentioned before, we are unsure these Horned-Entities are all intended to be the same entity.

The lore offered for Cernunnos is plagued by these confusions of function. The lore starts off rather solid with the function of a Prosperity entity being visible, but quickly is derailed. The notion of needing to respect nature is rooted in the 18th century Celtic Revivalist movements as I discussed with Artio. In fact, we have fascinating archaeological evidence that the Gauls had heavily moved away from subsistence hunting by the period of contact with the Romans. Hunting has by this point moved into a sport for young male nobles, which is evidenced by the presence of wild animal remains (such as boar) in settlements that have zero marks of consumption. No butchery marks, no heat cracks from boiling, nothing. It appears these hunted animals were left to decay. It is rather interesting.

The notion of Cernunnos sitting in the forest is also an assumption of ours that has no rooting in archaeological remains, and I suspect is likely the result of Interpretatio Romana which sometimes linked him with Silvanus. From what we can discern about the Gaulish Deities is they seemed to be primarily Chthonic, Deities who reside beneath the earth. The notion of Cernunnos functioning as a wilderness entity doesn’t really have any basis. So, the suggestion that Cernunnos is an entity that is ensuring no over-use of nature is of unsolid footing in archaeological remains.

Just like with Artio who had a curious seasonal-association, Cernunnos or any of the Horned-Entities have no known connections to a calendar system, or to seasonal changes. The notion of a “Sacred Wheel,” is something I consider to be rather problematic as we know the Gauls had developed a rather complex calendar system that was most certainly not based on a wheel system. I feel as though the frequently thought of notion of a “Sacred Wheel,” is playing off the Classically-Assumed notion that the Gauls were somehow less ‘developed’ than others, which is full of problems on many fronts.

Lastly, for his lore, the notion of him being a child of the “All Mother,” is unfounded. We just don’t have any record of Gaulish mythic literature, and we have no solid proof that Cernunnos was venerated outside the modern day Paris region, that the other Horned-Entities may just be entirely different Deities.

Now, on to the physical, and audio depictions of Cernunnos. As with Artio, I specifically am looking at their main artwork for the base Skin of the Deity. If you want to follow along, you can see it here.

Right off the bat, I want to take a quick moment to talk about his bestial depiction. The Horned-Entities / Cernunnos are not classically depicted as bestial, the only zoomorphic feature we see repeated with the entity / entities is having antlers, or ram’s horns. Hooves, body fur, all of that are entirely divergent from the traditional images of this entity / these entities. I am not entirely sure why Cernunnos is modernly depicted as bestial, I expect it is a result of the assumption that he held some sort of wilderness or animal function, and extrapolating out of there. I think Marvel’s version of Cernunnos goes full Netjer and has an entire stag’s head. Anyways, Cernunnos is pretty consistently depicted as a man with horns or antlers, not a bestial semi-human entity. The depiction on The Pillar of the Boatmen is probably the best for our understanding of the Gaulish image of this entity if they are a singular being. The depiction on the Gunderstrup Cauldron has some issues since it is Thracian design which gets into fiddily art-history details.

Anyways, other than being bestial, the depiction’s alright. You can see the scant bit of a torc around his neck which seems to be rather important due to a suspected Wealth or Prosperity function. It’s too bad there are not some more hanging from his horns, I always liked that image. The war-paint is non-Gaulish from what I remember, we talked about this with Artio on Tuesday. The gauntlet with the ‘Glave’ is also obviously dodgy, but I don’t have to point that out, that seems to mostly just be a game mechanic thing.

With the voice lines, the first thing I would like to say is absolutely-awesome-thumbs-up for getting the hard C for his name. There are no soft Cs in the Celtic languages of this period, but that’s sort of overlooked and he gets given a soft C.

Now, again, I am rather trash at accents, but from the voice lines of Cernunnos that I can hear it sounds like they have an American voicing him. I would have expected someone who was French. I don’t really know if Smite often tries to keep Deities voice lines sounding appropriately regional, I will try to check that out.

And then one really minor nit-pick. When confronted with Medusa apparently Cernunnos can have the following voice line triggered, “I try to treat all creatures fairly, but serpents are not to be trusted!” which is really interesting. Cernunnos is often depicted with a serpent, one with ram’s horns. There is no basis to assume the Gauls had issues with serpents.

Anyways, for a really quick glance at any mythically-relevant powers, his Ultimate is dubbed The Wild Hunt and involving transforming others into boar. The notion that Cernunnos is linked to the European Folkloric notion of the Wild Hunt is very modern, with no evidence Cernunnos was connected with any form of hunting. It is not unreasonable for them to have stumbled across the notion however, it is rather widely disseminated.

So, in conclusion of all of this, it appears that Smite’s depiction of Cernunnos is drawing heavily on modern imaginings of the Entity / Entities. The lore is heavily based in modern day revivalist notions, the artistic depiction is similarly very modernized, and he has an American Accent. So, they are basing their Cernunnos more off the modern understanding of him which I find fascinating and sort of too bad they didn’t build this into his lore since he is so popular amongst modern groups. It is too bad he does not have some way to interact with Wealth generation since that is one of the few things we are fairly sure of with Cernunnos, apparently Fafnir from the Norse who came out the previous year from Cernunnos can, so it had already been established as precedent.

#smite game #smite #mythology #gaulish deities #celtic mythology #celtic

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taylie-a-study-mochi · 5 years

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FAQ 🌼

Welcome to my blog! I’m going to answer some basic questions here and if you have any other questions to ask that haven’t been answered here, shoot me an ask and it’ll join this #thetayFAQ #abouttay

What’s your full name? [Taylor Riley. I don’t give out my last name for obvious reasons! 😅]

How old are you? [23, my birthday is June 22nd. I’m a 96 liner 😏]

What are your preferred pronouns/gender and if you’re comfortable sexuality? [ I’m cool with she/her/they/them. My gender isn’t something I particularly label. I usually go with my given gender and don’t mind it, it’s just not exactly I suppose how I feel, however I am content and it’s not something that truly bothers me. So, calling me a woman or genderqueer is honestly fine with me. My sexuality is Queer/Bi. I also believe I’m somewhere on the aromantic spectrum!]

What country are you from? [USA, unfortunately. Midwest...IL, which is even more unfortunate.]

Religion? [I’m a very poor practicing Hellenic Polytheist. I’m an Aphrodite Devotee, but am obviously worshipping all the Gods. I am open to perhaps another devotion in the future. Right now, I need to have a stable somewhat practice. It’s only been two years...*sighs* mental illness man...it’s rough!]

Do you answer questions about Hellenic Polytheism and Religion in general? [Yup! I am more than happy to discuss that! I actually love talking about different religions and philosophies. I don’t tolerate any bashing though of any religion. 😒

Oh! You’re a student? [Hell yeah! Going for my screenwriting degree! I would love to work in television or video games. I also love to write novels/short stories/poems.]

DO YOU WRITE FANFICTION!?!?!? [LOL, yeah my dudes! I can write fan fiction for Supernatural, Harry Potter, and BTS! I’m open to anything with a reader, but if you’d like a romantic pairing the romantic pairings I write are, Destiel, WolfStar, Jily, Blackinnon, YoonMin, NamJin, TaeKook, JiKook, YoonKook. Otherwise, I am able to write bros being bros, chicks being chicks, etc! I also can write headcanons or reactions.

Are there any pairings that you don’t like will not answer questions about or write about? [I don’t write anything involving incest, or a non-legal age gap. Otherwise you’re free to ask but honestly I’m not a huge shipping person, despite the amount of fanfiction I read...I personally read for plot and because I love the “characters” so I’m super lame and don’t really have major hardcore ships besides like Destiel and WolfStar? Maybe Blackinnon? Oh and obviously Jily! Otherwise feel free to ask and I’ll let you know!

You’re an ARMY? [YEAH! Since Danger Era 😭 2014 was a positively changing year for me. BTS has been there for me through a lot of shit and I’m not ashamed to say I’m an ARMY! However, please don’t bash any members. I don’t have a bias. I have members I relate to more some days than others, sometimes always, but I honestly love every single one and I low key think biases can stir trouble if you don’t tread carefully, and that’s for any fandom! I’m always here to gush about them!]

Why is your current username that? [Well heads up, I’ll change it a lot. Currently though, it’s because bapsae is a jam, but also because I relate to the song, and in my way I am a complete and proud bapsae. 🖕🏻]

Favorite album? Song? BTS or otherwise? [DOOOOOOOOOOOOD. I don’t. Honestly picking favorites to me is impossible. So don’t ask, because I’ll end up naming like all the albums and songs of anyone.]

Halsey? [is that even a question? Fan since she started. Fan till the end. Ugh, fan is such an awful word. I got to find a stronger word!]

Languages? Ethnicity? [I technically at one point was fluent in spanish, but then highschool stopped 😂 so sadly very little Spanish, and I’d say I’m pretty decent at English, lol. I’d love to learn Korean but I’m very bad with languages and I’d have to have a very patient teacher. I don’t have the money for classes either. And dudes, I’m a whiter than an igloo. German/Polish descent. I’d be shook if I even had 1% anything else than white European.]

Politics? [ don’t even get me started. I do not talk about politics mostly because it makes me anxious about the state of the world and how ignorant people are but I don’t believe in political parties and I base my thoughts on others morals and beliefs versus red or blue or whatever other color, green? Lol. And no I don’t like fucking Asshole™️ and I don’t even wanna see his name.]

SUPERNATURAL? [ yeahhhhhhh, since ole dad went missing in 05’. I’m happy we’re coming across the last season and the story will finally end. It hasn’t been the same amazing awesome good show since Season 5/6. I mean I don’t mind it, but I honestly read more fanfic then pay attention to the show. And the actors, lol. I went to a con, and it was the time of my life. Supernatural is and was a big part of my life and always will be!]

HARRY POTTER? [ALWAYS! Love Harry Potter. That may be an understatement my room is actually HP themed. Like...I mean honestly Harry Potter themed like my walls are golden and maroon! 😂 and yes I’m a Gryffindor. I lean more towards Marauder Era, but obviously I love the original story as well. If you want pics of my room, shoot me asks.]

I see you speak a lot about mental health? [yupp, huge advocate. In therapy myself, future social worker/therapist whenever I can finally finish my undergrad and apply to grad school! I am super open about my struggles and anything majorly triggering will be tagged but I am real about everything.]

You have ADHD? [yeah was just diagnosed this year! It explains honestly so much and since starting stimulants life has improved. Focus still sucks. Memory still sucks. But hey, I can at least focus and memorize enough to somewhat function! WOOHOO! Also I’m in therapy and I will make you go to therapy ya sad sacks! 😉 but no seriously go to therapy. It’s awesome. Don’t stop till you find the right person. Don’t be afraid of meds. Don’t be afraid to advocate for yourself!

Woah! That was...explicit...? [MY FAM...I am a very sexual creature. I will totally non ashamedly talk about anything and everything sex related from in general to about BTS to about SPN, to honestly anything and everything. However it will be tagged!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Honestly don’t follow unless you’re 18+, but I can’t stop you so just FILTER THE #nsfw #notsafeforwork #smut

Recommend fics? [you can and you may also request :’) I do love to hype talented writers.]

Single? [HAH! Yeah, dudes I’m single and not particularly looking especially online.]

Do you drink? [cant with my meds! And personally I get anxious if I’m high or drunk so it’s not something I’m into but I’m sure I’ll indulge...once or twice a year 😂]

Any other questions shoot me an ask!

Requests? Shoot me an ask!

Just wanna gush? Tell me something awesome?

TALK TO ME! 👑

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papersandkeyboards · 5 years

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5/20-22: Time Getting Short? Time to Get Ice Cream

(STILL) 34TH WEEK, MAY 20-22, 2016.

Once upon a day, I was bored, because I had bought a ticket for a movie I’d been dying to watch (but as of now I forgot what it was) (it might have been Captain America) but I had an hour or more to kill. So I went down to the mall’s Barnes and Noble.

Barnes and Noble is one of the best bookstore I’ve ever encountered, and the reason why it’s so special to my eyes was because I couldn’t find one in even the biggest mall in my beloved home country. Since the best bookstore franchise in the country, although great, is not so reliable in providing me with non-translated books, I counted three most reliable bookstores for such things: Periplus, which are mainly spread in big airports throughout the country, thus the most easily accessible for me; Kinokuniya, which is basically Japanese but is great for two things—legit English books and legit cute Japanese stuff (including full-on non-translated Japanese comic books, but I’m not a manga fan to be freaked out by that fact); and Books & Beyond, which provides a whole shelf of classic English literature but too bad my interest isn’t really in Jane Eyre or Moby Dick and their friends.

Bottomline is, if Indonesia had a Barnes and Noble, I would totally freak.

Anyway, as for the lack of money (I’d also been thinking about space in the suitcase—what’s the use of all the great books I’d bought if I couldn’t fit them all in or if they could cost me a lot of bucks for luggage overweight?), I, as usual, strolled around the shelves, sifting sheepishly through the New Arrivals and Best Seller section. (one fact about me: I like to read but I’m aware that I don’t read as much as most people do—I just like to hang out in bookstores more than actually buying books)

I found a book and read the back cover. For some reason, I was interested, so I took the uncovered-by-plastic-wrap book to the nearest chair and started reading.

Next thing I know, I was hooked. Real bad.

The next visits to Barnes and Noble after that were to solely read the very book. It took me like three visits to finish the not-so-thick book, as I thought about getting caught reading the whole book without buying it if I stayed too long. I didn’t realize how badly I was going to be hooked to the book. The suspense (of the book, not from avoiding the store workers) was so real and I stayed in book hangover for days after. I loved it.

But if I loved the book so much, why didn’t I just buy it in the first place?

You see, the reason why was because I, at first, only wanted to see if the book was any good to spend my hour before watching that movie in the first visit. I didn’t want to waste my money on a book I would find disappointing at the end. Turned out I was wrong. Book was awesome. But now that I’ve read the whole thing, I didn’t feel like buying it anymore.

Sorry for the author, but I gotta say, kudos on that novel, I’m not a keen book reviewer but overall I praise it, and let me just say that I’ve been trying to find your other works and found jack and was a bit disappointed by that.

Oh, the book was entitled “The Truth”, by Jeffry W. Johnston, by the way.

Moving on to the next big agenda besides Multi and reading off books in a bookstore without buying them (God bless unwrapped new books), is the End-of-Stay AFS Orientation. It was from Friday to Sunday, and it was in a place called Port Townsend, and to reach it from Seattle one must take a ferry from Downtown Seattle to Bainbridge Island, and then take a car for some hours before reaching the campsite.

It’s a different kind of fun to hang out with other exchange students. We had sessions that everyone silently agreed were boring (sorry for any AFS volunteers who see this, but c’mon, even my local chapter back home did way better job in orientations). We played games of capture-the-flag, but instead of flag we had baseball mittens. That went crazy, by the way. We were awful at setting up territories and rules and someone had their ankle twisted or something. We played catch and soccer and badminton for a while before it started raining.

Oh, wait, a piece of memory just came in. My session group was fun, maybe because we held one session in the boys’ bunk, in which everyone can sit on the bed and get comfy, and because we had fun volunteers as our group leader (spoiler alert—and sorry for those who might take offense—I meant young, fun volunteers, which we all could relate better and they were more laid-back on telling stuff that older volunteers would not).

After rain was another session by the fire (this one was particularly not boring, though, haha). Each of us had to say what did we learn during the exchange—like what did we especially like about it that we decided to bring it home, what changed of us throughout, usual stuff but interesting. Some people brought up the idea of healthy lifestyle (apparently we all lived in a healthy part of the state, I guess). The Europeans all brought up the point that Americans are friendly (i.e. in grocery stores) and they wanted to bring that ‘warm’ attitude back to their countries. (except Italy, I guess? ...because Italians are already so friendly in general) Some people also mentioned how are they changed throughout the year—healthier, stronger (mentally), more outgoing, all the good stuff.

(among other points, I brought up the idea of waste separation and recycling that I came to love, but who knows that one small idea in mind could steer my one of biggest decisions of my lifetime)

Then the volunteers held a small quiz, through which I earned an extravagant American flag-themed LED glasses (which I traded with a friend for a notebook and a pair of 3D glasses). Our group of exchange students seem to have an obsession on hot chocolate, and particularly whipped cream, so what we’ve been doing if nothing else was hogging on the whipped cream and hot chocolate. We also wrote things in our language on a blackboard in the session room. We walked around the site in the morning, passing through people’s vacation homes and by this old military site with unused cannons, and we ended up at a beach beyond the bushes and took pictures.

capek, Mak.

After that session by the fire, at night, we played with our given glowsticks and had s’mores. Classic.

On the last night (that’s Saturday night), some of us girls decided to walk farther, way down the site, through the long and winding down road to another beach. I remembered something about it being illegal (as in we were not really allowed to go down there or at a certain distance from the cabin or whatever), but I guess that was exactly what made it much more fun.

We left Sunday morning.

Tania and Nouha carried their home country’s flag around so people can sign it. Raya passed around Indonesian-themed keychains. I also carried my flag around, asked people to sign it, and gave them wayang—shadow puppets—bookmark afterwards. (the funny thing is that Raya gave me an Indonesian keychain and I also gave her the wayang bookmark, because who would’ve guessed I, or she, would have someone from the same country in their chapter, hahaha) It’s not like that day was the last day we saw each other—there’s still departure day—but YES students—Tania, Nouha, Soha, Mubasshira, Raya—would leave earlier than us (around the first week of June), so it WAS the last time we would see the YES kids on an AFS orientation.

It took another 2-3 hours in total to get back from Port Townsend to Seattle, but right afterwards Cece, Hinaho, and Nouha planned to go to an ice cream festival which was apparently held in Capitol Hill, which was like, only 8 blocks from my house. And who on earth would miss free or discounted ice cream? Hell yeah I tagged along.

We got there to only find that the line to the ice cream trucks were as long as my list of never-ending responsibilities, so we gave up free ice cream and got paid ice cream from other ice cream shop instead. ... gpp lah ya yang penting makan es krim gitu.

All in all, this week seemed like a long week, writing-wise, but it was because there was so much happening (BOTH on weekdays and the weekend). ‘Twas the week I did something I had never done before, stepping yet farther out of the comfort zone, and receiving the utmost fun at the end.

...maaf euy kalau cheesy abis. But it essentially reminded me of why I went on an exchange, because the chance of performing a collectively-performed traditional dance alone or being in a night color run do NOT come where I come from. Or interacting with exchange students in general. Karena di kota asal di Indo simply nggak bakal datang kesempatan nari saman di depan umum sendirian dan ikut color run. Dan berinteraksi dengan anak-anak exchange in general.

Lagian bukannya emang itu salah satu tujuan internal ikut pertukaran pelajar? Bukan ke arah seneng-senengnya sih, tapi lebih ke expanding comfort zone nya itu. Sekalian belajar budaya negara lain, lebih dari budaya negara tujuan.

Salam dari satu-satunya orang yang ikut color run dan hacep sampai tengah malem yang pakai jilbab,

Nabila Safitri.

#langkahanakbangsa #afs friends

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formulatrash · 7 years

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Bit late for International Women’s Day but nevermind: a non-comprehensive primer of women in motorsport you should stan for

Lella Lombardi (on the right) being a stone cold badass as per. She is the only woman to have ever scored points (well, half a point) in a Formula 1 race. So far. I believe in you, Tatiana.

Motorsport is, regrettably, a boys’ club all too frequently. And it’s not “getting better” - there are fewer female F1 drivers now than in the 70s so don’t give me that shit but there are also loads of amazing women driving very fast and you should be into that.

Like, seriously, we should be into this. It’s easy to be into the men cus there’s loads of them but if you do nothing else off the back of this, please pick a lady and REP HARD for her. Consciously become a fan, get interested - female racers struggle to attract sponsorship and attention, for all the reasons that make motorsport (and indeed, the world) awful - and well, we’re all social media fiends here, we can very literally help change that.

Also they awesome and you should just get into following them. This list is so incredibly non-comprehensive because it’s just the people I like and know about, so please please make your own or add to it or whatever - I just didn’t want to let today go without posting something like this.

In no order whatsoever:

Jamie Chadwick:

Jamie has just signed to race in British F3 this year, the kind of thing 18 year olds do. Unusually, however, she spent the previous year becoming the first female and youngest ever champion of British GT - she is seriously fast and very talented and I really hope Aston Martin get her in their LMGT programme soon. (She raced for them in British GT)

Emma Kimilainen

It’s slightly tempting to make this list all youngsters but there are loads of women with established driver careers, so here’s a Very Fast Mum - Emma has done a lot of various GT championships but the one she’s in now is the one I’m most excited by, which is the new Electric GT series. As we all know, I love squeaky brum brums and I am generally super excited for the series and very, very happy Emma will be part of it.

Christina Nielsen

12 Hours Of Sebring winner and general endurance GT badass Christina is one of my favourite ladies in racing and also really funny on social media. She drives in Ferrari Scuderia Corsa, which is difficult for me as it means I have to like a Ferrari team but I hear they are the good bit.

Alice Powell

I just love the pink bits on this car sorry not sorry.

Alice has done British F4 and F3 and is now in Electric GT. Can we talk about how electric series are way better at getting women in and what a sorry statement that makes about petrolhead testosterone? Oof. Anyway, Alice is awesome - part of her job is kicking the Renault F1 drivers into shape because she is a protein-shake-guzzling gym dweller and more power to her.

Also, Alice was the first woman to win a Formula Renault championship and score points in GP3. The next woman to score points in GP3 is obviously featured shortly.

Katarina Kyvalova

She speaks 6 languages and appears to be a genius and is probably at least my age but can make photos like this look cool 👌🏽

Katarina races with the Bentley Belles, who are an all-female team - although she’s raced all over the place and I’m particularly into her rallying - who race, like, properly old Bentleys. I am pretty sure I would not be able to drive to the shops in a classic Bentley (they’re big, heavy, unwieldy) and not just because I’m an idiot, so this seems particularly knockout.

HERE FOLLOWS A SELECTION OF LADIES IN GERMAN FORMULA 4:

Michelle Halder:

Sophia Floersch

You turn a car pink, I will get excited about it. (Relatedly, same sponsor as might turn Force India’s car pink)

Carrie Schreiner

Oh god I love Carrie so much??? I seem to be a bit of a stan for GT drivers in particular but hey this is not new information. As well as having hair that any given member of Little Mix would envy (and so would I) Carrie is properly really fast and the kind of aggressive racer I always go hard for. She’s been in Formula 4 (indeed, the aforementioned ADAC F4) for a bit and did Lambourghini Super GT Middle East & Asia this year and like... what if... what if I really want to go to Dubai to see her race in it? Perhaps? Am I... potentially... in love with Carrie Schreiner??? This seems likely.

Katherine Legge

One of my main girls here, not gonna lie. Katherine has done lots of things, including DTM and Indycar and the Indycar is probably actually the more significant BUT also she was in the first two races of my very own beloved squeaky brum brums and I still weep for the injustice of her being dropped. Now she does the sort of endurance bonkersness that goes down in GT cars in the US.

(BRING BACK KATHERINE LEGGE aaaaaargh, sob)

Which brings me to

Simona de Silvestro

youtube

I stan so hard for Simona de Silvestro that I am kind of surprised I haven’t booked a plane and started a new life stalking her round Australia in Supercars. Ilu, Simona. Former Sauber development driver, Simona competed in Formula E’s first two seasons with Amlin Aguri/Andretti and this made me so happy I would probably let her burn my house down and remain a fan. I hope she fucking bosses supercars.

Louise Cook

I love rally drivers, I love British drivers, I mega love Louise Cook. She’s a very good example of why it’s important, massively important, to support female drivers - despite podium successes she had to sell her trophies in order to fund her last season. :( BUT she persevered and she’s lovely and very good at rallying and I would lovely nothing more than to see her repeat Michele Mouton’s contesting the WRC in the 1970s. Relatedly, here’s a gratuitous picture of Michele Mouton looking hella cool:

Hella cool.

Catie Munnings

Catie is only 19 and she’s already a European champion, what a boss. I think (although it is slightly unclear) she’s now Red Bull backed, as well as Peugeot so looks to be in with a strong shout of getting in the World Rally Championship extremely soon.

Esmee Hawkey

Esmee is another GT racing Brit and part of the Porsche programme, which is awesome. I’m totally going to have to watch loads of GT racing this year, oh no, what a problem I will be so upset.

Sara Williams

I nearly didn’t include Sara as things have kind of stalled for her a bit, sadly but fuck it I’ve been fond of her for ages and she’s still going.

Tatiana Calderon

If you don’t know about Tati what are you doing here. GP3 points-scoring queen and Sauber F1 development driver, Tatiana is an absolute boss. The only woman actively racing in the top flights of single seaters (sob, come back Simona) she’s an excellent, incredibly skillful and seriously hardworking racer. If anyone can break the 25-year stint since a woman raced in F1 then I very honestly reckon she can. Go Tati (also her teammates clearly like and respect her enormously, which is a bit of a daft note but something it’s potentially and tragically difficult to get, in a boys’ paddock.

ANYHOO those are but a very few of my faves, I might do some more shortly but this post was way out of control already.

Here’s Maria Teresa de Filippis, F1 driver in the 1950s, being an absolute badass:

Go fast, ladies.

#informative content #ladies in motorsport

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asheespiquantpeculiarities · 6 years

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Wifi troubles 3

The walk home felt like a walk of shame. I knew perfectly well that not a hair was out of place. I was absolutely sure about that, but I still felt eyes on me. Many of them. Of course, I was used to it, and had gotten rather good at ignoring everything, but... when I didn't WANT to be looked at... I sighed, getting home without more than a few cat calls. At home, I disinfected the vibrator and showered. A shower was definitely necessary. More than necessary. And then I cooked dinner. Because I felt like I should cook dinner. Proper dinner. With vegetables and meat and non-wine, since Raph still didn't drink it and... I noticed I felt guilty. Truly guilty. Because Raphaelle... well... she had said I could sleep with other people. But I hadn't said anything. Hadn't... announced the intention, at least. And now it had happened and... ... and there was a dinner table full of food. At least something to look forward to, right? I poured the water for Raph already... she likes it when it stood for a while. Like wine. Didn't make much sense to me, but well... I had a tea waiting for me.

When she finally came home, everything became the slightest bit chaotic. I heard obvious sounds of a bag hitting the wall, shoes hitting the closet - and a bit of shuffling that hopefully meant they were in order again now and then I heard running seps coming into the kitchen, the biggest grin on her face, sliding into the room on her socks. Even more happy to see me, she pulled me from the chair and kissed me, twirling with me on the spot: "I got the funding!" My chest was squeezed and my nose nuzzled and her eyes sparkled. I blinked. And brought up a smile: "... congrats!" My mind drew an absolute blank on the fact. "Yeeeesssss~ The letter came in the mail today! And I thought European Foundation, what? But then I remember, yes, I actually applied to the research and-" I still pulled an absolute blank, so I might have looked a little quizzical. "Aaand I didn't tell you about it, did I?", she looked apologetic, "I am very sorry. But yeah, we might even get a MALDI-TOF! Do you have any idea how much of a relief would be? No more staring through the microscope. Put it on the plate, send it through, get the results. I could even get access to a proper database, Gabe! I might even be able to *outsource*!", I got kissed again. I laughed with her, smiling. That's the enthusiasm I actually laughed her for: "That's GREAT, babe!" She grinned at me: "It is!", there was one last big hug, then she let me go, finally deciding to get out of her coat, throwing over an unoccupied chair anyway. "I know you have no idea what I mean, so... double thanks for saying that", the smile turned just content, "I don't know what I did to deserve you" It stung a little, hearing that. Just right about now. And I was in a bit of a... mental chaos, there , I fell back on the chair. Setting her endless hair free, she sat down on the table and realised for the first time that everything was already done and we could actually eat. "Oh!", she said, "Dinner's ready", I saw the gears turning in her head, "... what kind of significant thing happened to you, then? Pre-celebrating the change of station? Got a good letter of recommendation? Do tell!", she looked just as excited as she did over her funding. Always excited about everything that happened to me. "That's... not it", this was difficult. Raph did not always catch on, why today... "Meaaaaat~", she grabbed a steak, And beans. And bacon. And looked generally happy with the world before she returned her attention to me. Admittedly, I wouldn't expect bad news when dinner was served either, but I had to say it before I didn't and it got out in other ways: "... I slept with Mr. Kadir" She almost bit into her steak, but now let her fork sink again, looking at me with a slack expression and... well... that was to be expected. I started to frown and started to glance away, when I noticed her face lighting up like it's christmas and her birthday on the same day: "You decided FOR kids right now?" It was not an overstatement when I say that her eyes sparkled. Properly, this time. After maybe half a minute, it receeded - maybe because I was still frowning - and she schooled her face into an apologetic one: "Eh... or just... for pleasure, yes? That works, too. Must have been awesome, then. I didn't mean to press-" My mind returned to Samil's whispered words and the moment of shock and the weird pool of feeling in my stomach and: "IT... might... I might possibly... have thought about it... a bit..." The expression of utmost delight returned to her face, maybe even with double strength. "Reaaaallly?", her lip was slightly quivering from the wideness of the smile, "You mean... tiny Gabes? Actual, honest miniature versions of you that are even cuter?" "... I might have thought about that a little harder... maybe...", which was... the truth. Somewhat. I certainly had thought more about it than I had in the last years. "That is the BEST reason to celebrate! Best! Best-deserved steak ever!", that grin had apparently decided to stay for eternity. And I spend the next hours telling her about the potential father - and then other potential fathers - and she told me the IT-guy still had an eye on me and combining language genes with science genes would be a good starting point. And I had said I liked his wit and looks, so that should be fine, too. But she was fine with any choice I would make. I made the best choices. ... And she looked at me like I was a gift from the heavens. The whole time. And recommended some more test drives, since sexual compatibility actual makes for well fitting genes, too. And... and then she curled around me in bed, telling me she loved me SO MUCH. Without child, too, definitely, there is no thought otherwise, but I must be excited, too, if I already cooked, so this was alight, right? And then the beaming ray of sunshine slept in next to me, arms slung around me, enveloping me as completely as possible. ... This had been one of the weirdest days in my entire life.

#WiFiTroublesOfAnotherKind #1114 words

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letterdrill08-blog · 5 years

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5 Easy Facts About face mask Described

In medieval Europe As well as in Japan troopers and samurai wore in the same way ferocious-searching protective armour, extending to face-masks. Inside the sixteenth century, the Visard was worn by Women of all ages to guard from sunburn. Now this perform is attributed to slim balaclavas. [44] Although these civic masquerades as well as their masks could possibly have retained aspects drawn from popular lifestyle, the survival of carnival from the nineteenth century was often a consequence of a self-acutely aware 'folklore' motion that accompanied the rise of nationalism in lots of European international locations.[forty five] n95 face mask priceface masks priceface mask in the vicinity of me priceface mask sheet priceface mask with eye shield pricenon woven face mask priceface mask in delhi priceface mask three ply pricele gear pro additionally face mask cost It's conjectured that the initial masks might have typically been employed by primitive individuals to associate the wearer with some form of unimpeachable authority, which include "the gods" or to if not lend credence to the person's assert on the presented social job. Rites of passage, including initiation of younger family members, or funerals, have been completed on the shrine underneath the watch on the ancestral masks. At funerals, Expert actors would wear these masks to carry out deeds from the life with the ancestors,[24] So linking the part of mask for a ritual object and in theatre. Want to turn day-to-day right into a fantastic pores and skin working day? Want to know how one can keep the skin young, fresh, and glowing 24/7? Just about every human being would like to feel and look their best all of the time. Our self confidence is specifically proportionate to just how we come to feel about ourselves. Deriving website of oneself is however a job which might be significantly assisted with the usage of good merchandise. The variety and wonder of the masks of Melanesia are Practically as remarkably produced as in Africa. This is a lifestyle wherever ancestor worship is dominant and religious ceremonies are dedicated to ancestors. Inevitably, many of the mask kinds relate to use in these ceremonies and therefore are joined While using the functions of top secret societies. Want to turn daily right into a superior skin day? Want to know ways to continue to keep your skin youthful, fresh, and glowing 24/seven? honey sugar scrub wants to look and feel their finest all the time. Our self-assurance is specifically proportionate to just how we really feel about ourselves. Deriving the very best away from yourself is however a endeavor that may be greatly assisted with using intelligent solutions. Korean masks have a protracted tradition related to shamanism and later on in ritual dance. Korean masks ended up used in war, on both equally troopers and their horses; ceremonially, for burial rites in jade and bronze and for shamanistic ceremonies to drive absent evil spirits; to keep in mind the faces of wonderful historic figures in Demise masks; and from the arts, specifically in ritual dances, courtly, and theatrical performs. For somewhat pampering, head to the refrigerator and grab an egg. Should you have dry pores and skin that desires moisturizing, separate the egg and beat the yolk. Oily skin will take the egg white, to which a bit of lemon or honey could be added. Ornamental masks might be worn as Portion of a costume outside of ritual or ceremonial functions. This is commonly referred to as a masque, and relates carefully to carnival variations. For example, attendants of a costume celebration will sometimes have on masks as part in their costumes. Inuit groups vary broadly and don't share a standard mythology or language. Not astonishingly their mask traditions can also be generally distinctive, Whilst their masks are sometimes designed away from driftwood, animal skins, bones, and feathers. See also: Masks between Eskimo peoples Pacific Northwest Coastal indigenous groups had been normally very experienced woodworkers. Their masks had been generally learn-parts of carving, in some cases with movable jaws, or possibly a mask within a mask, and elements moved by pulling cords. You can also attain a much better understanding of the item by undergoing beneficial user created comments. Right after finalizing your choice, possess the products sent to your doorstep and complete the transaction by using a person of numerous handy payment selections. Discover the most effective pores and skin treatment products on the net by shopping at Amazon India.

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merrynewtonmas · 6 years

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December 31 - Season of Reason Day 7 - Learn Something New

December 31 Season of Reason Day 7 Learn Something New Today's Celebration Pledge to learn something new every day this year. You can learn in a formal setting like a school or with a coach or you can learn by reading a book or watching a video. Your goal is to become a lifelong learner. The gift of learning from the Muslim tradition While Europe was mired in the Dark Ages, other parts of the world were experiencing scientific golden ages. In the far east China was experiencing a rapid expansion of technology during the Song dynasty from 900 to 1100 AD. In the Muslim world, which stretched from India to Andalusia (Spain), a scientific awakening was occurring at roughly the same time. It is a matter of intense academic debate as to which culture influenced who to become smarter and more advanced. Some scholars maintain that the Chinese took technology from the Muslim world while others accuse the Muslims of ‘borrowing’ Chinese advancements and spreading them around the Muslim world. I’m going to leave most of that historical debate for another time and place. There was one technology that the Muslims blatantly stole from the Chinese which made their advancements in technology much easier to acquire. That technology was paper. After the battle of Talas in 751 between the Abbasid Caliphate and the Tang dynasty led by Emperor Xuanzong, Caliphate forces had the good fortune of capturing some very special Chinese soldiers. These soldiers knew the secret of papermaking. The Chinese had been making paper for hundreds of years and were adept at using paper to aid in administration of government and the military. It is not surprising that the forces of Emperor Xuanzong were carrying papermakers since the army needed paper to issue orders and keep track of the million and one things an army needs while marching and fighting. Once the Caliphate realized who they had captured, they sent the papermaking soldiers to Samarkand to show Caliphate administrators how to make it and spread this knowledge all over the muslim world. In fact by the year 795 paper was being made with the Chinese method in Baghdad. Baghdad was the capital of the Caliphate, the intersection of every major trade route on earth, and would become the home to the House of Wisdom. Once the secret of paper made it to Baghdad it was only a short time before paper started showing up in Europe, Africa, and every corner of Asia. Some historians maintain that paper was the one of the fastest spreading technologies in the medieval world. Papermaking was second only to gunpowder which skipped across Eurasia in less than a generation. The Muslim world was ready to exploit the introduction of paper because Islam placed such an emphasis on literacy. In Christian Europe most of the people who could read were members of the clergy, an overwhelming majority of regular people were illiterate and dumb as rocks. There was no requirement that you know how to read in order to be a Christian. In fact, if you did know how to read it probably would not do you any good since everything was written in Latin, a language that only the clergy understood. The situation was much different for a practicing muslim. Muslims believe that the Quran is the direct word of God given to the Prophet Muhammad in the early 600s. Muhammad spoke arabic the language of the Quraysh tribe he belonged to that inhabited the area on the Arabian Peninsula around Mecca during his lifetime. Naturally, the Quran is written in the language that Muhammad spoke. Muslims believe that the only true form of the Quran is in Arabic. Once the Quran is translated into another tongue the translation is not longer the pure form of God’s word. Also, another major difference between Medieval Christianity and Islam is that in Islam there were no established clerics for the vast majority of the muslim community. There were formal and informal leaders among muslim communities of faith but there was no bureaucracy that existed solely to explain and interpret the word of God to the common person. In fact, in Islam followers were expected to read God’s word for themselves and make their own decision on how to worship Allah from Muhammad’s prophecy in the Quran and his example in the book of his life (the Sunnah). In order to be a good muslim you were expected to read and understand Arabic. With no formal educational infrastructure when Islam started, this was a tall order. The way that this problem was solved was that everywhere that Islam was carried teachers went with it. Mosques doubled as places of worship and schools that taught the newly converted how to read and write in Arabic. This was a serendipitous occurrence because as Islam spread from the Indus river valley to the Atlantic ocean the common language of religion became the common language of government, administration, trade, and education. Literate people could read and write Arabic because they were good Muslims and they could use this literacy coupled with paper to effectively advance education, science, and technology. Mosques doubled as schools that taught the devout the Quran. These schools grew into madrasas that taught non-religious subjects like science, math, and the law. These madrasas became the basis for the University system in the Muslim world which was transferred to the west in the 1000s. So today we are going to honor Islamic madrasas and the granting of degrees written on paper from China. Specifically, we are going to recognize the founder of the first formal madrasa in the world, the University of Karaouine in Morocco. This was the first institution in the world to grant degrees to students upon completion of their studies. Al-Karaouine was founded by Fatima al-Fihri in 859. Here is an exerpt from http://ift.tt/1gEezj8 that explains this extrordinary accomplishment in greater detail.

"Speaking of universities, that is also an invention made possible by the Muslim world. Early on in Islamic history, mosques doubled as schools. The same people who led prayers would teach groups of students about Islamic sciences such as Quran, fiqh (jurisprudence), and hadith. As the Muslim world grew however, there needed to be formal institutions, known as madrasas, dedicated to the education of students.

The first formal madrasa was al-Karaouine, founded in 859 by Fatima al-Fihri in Fes, Morocco. Her school attracted some of the leading scholars of North Africa, as well as the land’s brightest students. At al-Karaouine, students were taught by teachers for a number of years in a variety of subjects ranging from secular to religious sciences. At the end of the program, if the teachers deemed their students qualified, they would grant them a certificate known as an ijaza, which recognizes that the student understood the material and is now qualified to teach it.

These first degree-granting educational institutes quickly spread throughout the Muslim world. Al-Azhar University was founded in Cairo in 970, and in the 1000s, the Seljuks established dozens of madrasas throughout the Middle East. The concept of institutes that grant certificates of completion (degrees) spread into Europe through Muslim Spain, where European students would travel to study. The Universities of Bologna in Italy and Oxford in England were founded in the 11th and 12th centuries and continued the Muslim tradition of granting degrees to students who deserved them, and using it as a judge of a person’s qualifications in a particular subject.”

What makes this accomplishment particularly astonishing is that the University of Karaouine was founded by a woman. There were parts of the muslim world that were pretty progressive in 850 but to have anything this important started by any woman was remarkable. It is because of Fatima al-Fihri that millions of people have received degrees from programs of study. Fatima al-Fihri was a remarkable woman whose invention has helped incubate and create scientific progress for over 1000 years. How do we honor such an amazing accomplishment? Today you should make a commitment to formally study something in the next year. Whatever you study is up to you. If you want to take a class and get a degree, that is awesome. If you want to scour the internet and your local library to learn a certain topic, go for it. If you want to apprentice with someone that is proficient in a subject or skill, more power to you. The only requirements that you need to follow is to enjoy what you are learning and be willing to pass it along to another person. Just another word of advice before you take this journey. It is OK to be ignorant and not know everything. Remember that there is a difference between ignorance and stupidity. Ignorance is not knowing what is inside the book because you haven’t read it, stupidity is reading the book and ignoring good ideas that are inside it. Very simply, it is OK to be ignorant but don’t be stupid. via Blogger http://ift.tt/2CsoLxE

#merrynewtonmas seasonofreason

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trendingnewsb · 6 years

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8 Ways Earth Will Look Freaking Insane In Thousands Of Years

If the Earth was an apartment, the human race would be like your old roommate — long after we’re gone, this place will still have our stink all over it. And like the old socks or half-eaten sandwiches you’re constantly finding behind furniture, distant archaeologists will stumble upon the permanent marks we’re leaving on this planet and wonder what the hell was going on. For example …

Future Earth Will Be Covered In Multicolored Rocks Made From Your Random Crap

Human beings have manufactured around six billion tons of plastic since we invented it around a hundred years ago, and as useful as this stuff is, the downside is that it doesn’t ever go away. Look around you and see how much plastic is in the room you’re in right now — all that stuff is still going to exist ages from now. Granted, it will look a little different by then. Something like this:

It’s only in the past decade that scientists have started to discover the bizarre way that plastic is incorporating itself into our natural environment. Like Ben Grimm, it’s turning into rocks. Over many years of exposure to the elements, plastic clumps together and combines itself with rocks, sand, and minerals in the environment, producing weird, brightly colored stones. Millennia from now, rocky shores could look like they’re made out of melted Lego bricks. Because they realistically might be.

And it’s more than plastic. Other materials, such as glass, are also shaped by the environment into permanent reminders of how little of a shit we give about it. Future beaches might look like this:

That’s Ussuri Bay in Russia, where the ocean has spat up tons of broken glass and ceramic fragments, which years of water erosion have reshaped into cute little pebbles that look like gummy candies. Don’t put them in your mouth, though. Seriously.

Yet another variety of garbage-stone is known as Fordite, or Detroit Shale. It’s actually dozens of layers of paint scraped from the floors of car factories, and it’s already so ubiquitous that people are turning it into jewelry and selling it.

The Same Way We Dig Up Dinosaur Bones, Future Explorers Will Dig Up Fossilized Machines

If some kind of apocalypse knocks us back to the Stone Age and we recover enough to start digging up fossils again, then future archaeology is going to be really weird. On a long enough timescale, anything can be swallowed by the Earth and fossilized until we dig it up and stick it in a museum. That includes whatever you’re using to read this article right now.

According to scientists writing for The Anthropocene Review, everything that we manufacture, from pens to garage doors to tractors, will eventually be covered up by sand and dirt and become “technofossils.” That sounds like a bullshit term made up for a Michael Bay movie, but it’s a real concept which kids might learn in third grade one day.

Imagine future dig sites where people are using little chisels and brushes to delicately extract your PlayStation, or your phone charger, or your dildo (or your phone charger / dildo). And depending on how far removed our cultural memory is from modern times, they’ll probably have no idea what half of this stuff even is. Future museums might look like Ariel’s treasure room from The Little Mermaid, with plaques explaining how forks were used for combing hair and cheese graters were defensive weapons.

And this has the potential to get weird. Imagine future scientists digging up the Neon Boneyard, the place where Las Vegas dumps all of its old neon signs. Or thousands of fossilized E.T.: The Video Game cartridges.

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Dear lord, let’s hope they don’t find a way to play those games. Then they’ll really hate us.

If Humans Ever Forget What Satellites Are, Future Astronomers Will Be Screwed

Ever wondered what would happen to the over 1,000 active satellites orbiting the Earth right now if we suddenly lost the ability to maintain them? Like maybe there’s a nuclear apocalypse, or someone forgets the password. Well, most of them would fall back to Earth within 25 years, while others (the larger ones that run the risk of surviving reentry and smacking some poor SOB in the face) are blasted further out into a 500-year orbit at the end of their lives. The latter would be our great-great-great-great-grandchildren’s problem, but not ours.

But then there are the “geosynchronous” satellites — the ones which are designed to exactly match the rotation of the Earth. To us, they look like ordinary stars, except for the fact that they don’t move as the Earth rotates, as if they were creepily staring at us the whole time (which they probably are, though the government denies it). They’re calibrated so precisely that they don’t experience any drag or friction, which means that they won’t come down for literally billions of years. That’s some enviable stamina.

Now imagine the scenario that scientist and photographer Trevor Paglen proposed in 2016 while studying these objects: A thousand generations after the fall of civilization, a new society (be it human, talking dog, or whatever) emerges from the dirt, survives its medieval period, and enters an Enlightenment. Some future Galileo analogue invents a telescope and points it to the sky in the hope of figuring out how the Solar System works, perhaps already harboring the suspicion that we’re a speck of dust in an infinite cosmos of orbiting spheres … only to get confused by the fact that a whole bunch of stars never move at all. He throws his (correct) telescope out the window and becomes a flute player.

It would be hundreds of years before we’d have the technology to correctly identify these unmoving stars as space junk from a prior advanced civilization. Until then, we’d probably have developed some “Facebook group for flat Earth enthusiasts”-level wrong theories about what stars are and how the Universe operates. In short, we’ve already started trolling our future descendants without even realizing it.

We Might Create Color-Changing Cats To Keep Future Humans Away From Nuclear Waste

If history is anything to go by, human beings a mere couple of thousand years from now are going to be completely unable to understand our current language. Ever tried to read Beowulf? That shit was English at some point, but now it looks like your friend sat on their phone with the chat window open.

You know what doesn’t change so quickly, though? Nuclear waste dumps, which will remain unsafe for tens of thousands of years. And this begs the question: How the hell do we keep humans away from there long after we’ve ceased to be able to interpret contemporary “Do Not Enter” signs? One of the fears is that no matter what symbols we come up with, future humans are going to interpret them to mean “buried treasure,” because the various “holy fuck seriously do not dig here” signs posted by ancient Egyptians didn’t work so well on Europeans.

Scientists have been giving this conundrum a lot of thought lately, and they’ve been coming up with some truly bizarre ideas about how to communicate danger through the eons without using language. For example, we could plausibly genetically engineer a race of Technicolor cats. This idea isn’t as insane as it sounds. Or OK, maybe it is, but it’s one that they’ve been seriously considering. Because cats are likely to remain ubiquitous companions of humankind until the end of our species, if we could engineer them to change color in the presence of radioactive material, theoretically, future humans might learn to associate such color-changing felines with danger and stay the hell away. That or we’ll think they’re witches and burn them all.

Other ideas include trying to create some type of religion, a so-called “Atomic Priesthood” which keeps future generations away from waste dumps, like the guardians in the non-Tom-Cruise version of The Mummy. Others suggest we could cover waste sites in a “Landscape of Thorns” — fields of jagged, impassable, ominous stones that would make excavation both difficult and frightening. Future people might think we’re dicks, but hey, at least their dicks won’t fall off.

We’re really hoping for the color-changing cats scenario, though. That sounds awesome.

The Hoover Dam Was Designed To Be The Great Pyramid For Future Ages

Of all the monuments that humankind has created during its dominion over the planet, one of the most, uh, monumental, is Arizona’s Hoover Dam. It’s estimated that it’ll keep chugging away for around 10,000 years, even if a catastrophe knocks back our civilization an era or three and we forget what it is. Should that happen, future civilizations are going to ask a lot of questions about this place and its weird-ass artwork.

See, the Hoover Dam site is lousy with sculptures by Norwegian-American artist Oskar J.W. Hansen, who was commissioned by the state government to create some artwork that would transform the Dam from just another public works project into a downright Wonder of the Modern World. And Hansen did precisely that, decorating the dam with sculptures like two 20-foot-tall bodybuilders made of bronze with wings on their backs. According to Hansen, they represent “the immutable calm of intellectual resolution, and the enormous power of trained physical strength, equally enthroned in placid triumph of scientific accomplishment.”

Hansen had greater aspirations for the dam than it being a big power station. He compared it to the Great Pyramid, and wanted it to stand as an equal testament to mankind. And like the Great Pyramid, he covered it in hieroglyphics that nobody will be able to understand now that he’s too dead to explain them. On top of the Sphinx-like Winged Figures, the dam is decorated with bas-reliefs …

USBR Future people will be impressed that we made this before we invented clothes.

… and celestial maps which cryptically record the date that Franklin Roosevelt dedicated the structure in September 1935. The star chart was created so that “those versed in astronomy could calculate the precession [progressively earlier occurrence] of the Pole Star for approximately the next 14,000 years.” We imagine our descendants will probably be disappointed if they ever decode these symbols and discover they just reveal the date that the dam opened, and not, like, the cure for cancer or something actually useful.

Mount Rushmore Will Be The Last Monument To Humanity

Flash forward seven million years from now. Humankind is gone. Either we Mad Max-ed ourselves into oblivion or blasted off into space and left our dying planet to its fate. By this time, the Earth has swallowed every trace of our once-great civilization. If aliens ever visit our world long after we have perished, only one solitary monument will remain. And that is … American jingoism, baby!

According to the scholars who study the legacy of humanity long after it’s perished, the presidential carving at Mount Rushmore, South Dakota is likely to be the last human construction that remains after the Earth’s natural housekeeping processes blow away every other trace of our existence. The dirt, sand, and oceans will sink our cities beneath the ground, but Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt, Lincoln, and anyone else we add (Kanye?) will continue to stare down at a planet otherwise swept clean.

That’s because the Black Hills, where the monument is, happens to be one of the most tectonically stable places on Earth. On top of that, the statues are carved out of solid Precambrian granite, one of the toughest naturally occurring rocks on the planet. According to science writer Alan Weisman, author of The World Without Us, the faces on Mount Rushmore will be recognizable for around 7.2 million years, barring some freak event like a direct asteroid collision or alien death ray.

Kjsmith47/iStock Which is moot, since no species that advanced would be stupid enough to fuck with Teddy Roosevelt.

And this isn’t a coincidence. The sculptor, Gutzon Borglum, chose the site specifically so that the sculpture would “last forever.” In fact, he even specified that the statues should be three inches thicker than the ideal measurement, so that the natural erosion would take a few million years longer. He was pretty fond of presidents and/or faces.

As an addendum, there is a similar sculpture which geologists think might last almost as long: the Stone Mountain Confederate Memorial in Georgia. Also carved into solid, nigh-impenetrable granite, the statue is kind of the anti-Mount Rushmore, depicting Confederate figures Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis, and the appropriately named Stonewall Jackson. Just saying, it’s remotely possible that the final surviving testament to human civilization will be a celebration of slavery.

Future Alien Explorers Will Probably Assume We Were A Burrowing Species

Let’s look forward to around a hundred million years after we disappear. Even Mount Rushmore is gone. Earth looks like a brand-new planet never before touched by intelligent life. Would some alien visitor ever know that we were here? They probably would, but they would likely assume that we were some kind of giant Dune Sandworm-like creatures, due to our final legacy: a whole bunch of tunnels.

Why tunnels? Because natural environmental erosion tends to erase everything on the surface fairly quickly if people aren’t around to maintain it — like shaking an Etch-a-Sketch, but really slowly and measured in geological epochs. Under the ground, however, such erosion doesn’t occur. In fact, an important factor in the science of geology is studying the tunnels dug by burrowing creatures such as worms, rabbits, moles, and woodchucks, since these burrows remain there long after the animals that made them have been relegated to evolution’s dustbin.

Well, for all intents and purposes, human beings are a burrowing species too, though on a much greater scale. Animals might build tunnels and burrows, but we build subways, boreholes, and mines. The (sexy) term for this is “anthroturbation,” and it will be the last evidence that we existed. Things like the Salt Lake City mines and the London Underground will probably remain until the end of the Earth itself. This brings up an interesting point for those searching for alien life: Instead of looking for alien cities and giant Mars faces, we should probably be looking for evidence of ancient extraterrestrial subway systems.

In A Bizarre Twist, Scientists Are Going Back To Recording Our Knowledge On Stone Tablets

No matter how long human civilization continues to trundle along, future archaeologists who try to get a glimpse of our world will probably assume that we were all wiped out sometime in the late 20th century. After all, that’s when we stopped writing things down. Digging up fossilized computers won’t do our future descendants any good, because no data on those machines will be recoverable. In fact, as we’ve covered before, we’ll be lucky if we can interpret today’s computer software 50 years from now, let alone in a million years. The digitization of information and the large-scale purging of hard copies has made all of human knowledge compact and convenient, but it also put an expiration date on all of that stuff. If we vanish tomorrow, then the totality of our combined human knowledge will last only as long as the batteries in our Kindles.

With this in mind, some scientists have decided to go full circle, preserving the legacy of human knowledge using the best method we’ve ever figured out: etching it on stone tablets and burying it in the desert.

Memory Of Mankind They’re even scattering these coins with their location around the world so future generations can know what an unhelpful map looks like.

The Memory of Mankind Project intends to utilize the one technology that mankind has gotten progressively worse at over time — data storage — and etch as much of our knowledge, history, popular fiction, and culture into the surface of a number of ceramic plates, which they will then bury deep in an abandoned Austrian salt mine. Millions of years hence, the hope is that our future descendants will stumble across a treasure trove of ancient plaques which will teach them everything from modern calculus to the relativity formula to the recipe for a really great chili to … Pepe the Frog.

Yeah, the MoMP people aren’t the only ones seeking to create an eternal ceramic legacy to mankind’s “achievements.” In 2017, the website 9Gag also bankrolled a project to bury a carved stone tablet deep beneath the Earth for the benefit of future generations. But far from the collected enlightenment of a foregone past, its purpose is to record internet memes. You know, like Dickbutt, Philosoraptor, and Pen-Pineapple-Apple-Pen. On second thought, we deserve oblivion.

S. Peter Davis is the creator of the Three Minute Philosophy YouTube series, and is the author of the book Occam’s Nightmare.

Get your cat ready for business because let’s face it, cats are going to take over the Earth.

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