moi

This is a lovespoon. They’re found in several cultures worldwide, particularly in Scandinavia, but most famously in Wales (that photo is a Welsh lovespoon) and, from at least the 17th century, they were given as gifts by a suitor to his intended lady. They’re supposed to be carved from one block of wood, and decorated with various symbols which have slightly nuanced meanings, all basically a variation on ‘you’re rad, want to get wed?’

Because marriage in poor, rural parts of Wales was often more akin to cohabitation at the time (i.e. you didn’t really have a big ol’ legal ceremony, you just sort of said ‘we’re married now’ and shacked up together) a lovespoon could act as a wedding ring of sorts; you’d put your goshdarn heart and soul into carving it and you’d give it to the dame you sought, and if she accepted the spoon, then you were essentially wed, or at least bound together in a meaningful way. It’s assumed that they were initially supposed to be at least somewhat functional, because people did in fact eat with wooden spoons back in the day, but they’re now purely decorative. And hoo boy, can they be decorative. These are some of the ones on display at St Fagans Museum:

Nowadays, they’re generally mass produced, and tend to look more like this:

Michael Sheen: No one except those from Wales can pronounce this 

OK very quick (and slightly reductive but you get the gist) lesson for people who seem to think that ‘Gaelic’ is, like, a catch-all term for everything British that isn’t English

Spoiler alert: it goddamn isn’t, and not least because Irish isn’t British

You have your Celtic languages, which is a big ol’ branch encompassing lots of (sadly) extinct or mostly extinct languages from Continental Europe

Within that group, you have your Insular Celtic languages, which means Celtic languages that originated within Britain and Ireland

And then, within your Insular Celtic languages, you have two branches, Brythonic and Goidelic

The current languages spoken within those categories are:

Brythonic languages = Welsh, Breton, Cornish

Goidelic/Gaelic languages = Scottish Gaelic, Irish, Manx

You don’t have ‘Gaelics’, because Gaelic isn’t a demonym (a name for the inhabitants of a place, e.g. the Welsh, the Irish), it’s an adjective (e.g. Gaelic literature) and a language group when used as a noun

And yes, it is quite important to get this shit right because those of us who belong to these cultures have historically had our languages and cultures marginalised and erased by The Accursed English, and so we quite like to keep them alive where possible, and that means not having them all just lumped under the totally inaccurate category of ‘idk, not English, so probably Gaelic????’

You see the bit where I mentioned the broad umbrella category of Celtic, which encompassed many sadly extinct languages in Continental Europe? That’s where Gallaecian fits in. Whereas Brythonic and Goidelic languages are Insular Celtic, meaning they originated or were spoken in what is now Britain and Ireland, Gallaecian is Hispano-Celtic, meaning a Celtic language spoken on the Iberian Peninsula. It’s a sub category of Continental Celtic, which is in turn a sub category of Celtic. It’s just a different branch in the Celtic language tree.

So, it goes:

Celtic->Insular Celtic->Brythonic->Welsh, Breton and Cornish

Celtic->Insular Celtic->Godeilic->Scottish Gaelic, Irish and Manx

Celtic->Continental Celtic->Hispano Celtic->Gallaecian, Celtiberian

There’s quite a lot of languages under the Continental Celtic branch, perhaps most notably Gaulish, but also Noric, Galatian and Lepontic.

Caption:

[Person 1: WALL-E and EVE are both nonbinary.

Person 2: What are you talking about? Keep your... Liberal politics out of my kid’s movie. WALL-E’s a boy and EVE is a girl.

Person 1: But they’re... they’re robots. They don’t have genitals.

Person 2: Yeah but like WALL-E is square and does construction and EVE is like feminine and sexy looking.

Person 1: So, gender is a matter of presentation and expression, not a matter of biology.

Person 2: No! Gender’s just about your genitals.

Person 1: Then, WALL-E’s nonbinary. He doesn’t have genitals.

Person 2: No, WALL-E’s a boy.

Person 1: Then gender is a matter of expression an-

Person 2: No! Gender is just biological!

Person 1: Then WALL-E doesn’t have a gender

Person 2: No! He’s a boy robot!

mcr inspired stephanie meyer to write twilight

twilight gets a movie deal

michael sheen gets casted as aro in the twilight films

a reporter asks michael sheen why he’s in such a silly film series for such a silly genre

michael sheen defends the genre publicly and cites neil gaiman’s works

neil gaiman hears about this and reached out and they go to dinner and eat illegal octopus

neil gaiman and michael sheen become friends

His Dark Materials | Season 2: Official Teaser. Season 2 will premiere in November 2020.

- hijabis get really excited over pretty scarves - they also like to collect pins and brooches - we get asked a lot of questions and it can be annoying or it can be amusing, just depends on our mood and personality and how the question is phrased - common questions include: - “not even water?” (referring to fasting) - hijabis hear a lot of “do you sleep in that?” (we don’t) and “where is your hair?” (in a bun or a braid, usually) - “is it mooze-slim or mozzlem?” (the answer is neither, it’s muslim, with a soft s and accent on the first syllable) - “ee-slam or iz-lamb?” (it’s iss-laam, accent on the first syllable) - “hee-job?” (heh-jahb, accent on the second syllable)

- “kor-an?” (no. quran. say it like koor-annn, accent on the second syllable) - people tend to mess up our names really badly and you just get a sigh and a resigned nod or an awkward smile, maybe a nickname instead - long hair is easy to hide, short hair is harder to wrap up - hijab isn’t just covering hair, it’s also showing as little skin as possible with the exception of face, hands, and feet, and not wearing tight/sheer clothing - that applies to men too, people just don’t like to mention it ( i wonder why) - henna/mehendi isn’t just for special occasions, you’ll see people wearing it for fun - henna/mehendi isn’t just for muslims, either, it’s not a religious thing - henna/mehendi is not just for women, men also wear it, especially on their weddings - there are big mehendi parties in the couple of nights before eid where people (usually just women and kids) gather and do each other’s mehendi, usually just hands and feet - five daily prayers - most muslim kids can stutter through a couple verses of quran in the original arabic text by the age of seven or eight, it does not matter where they live or where they’re from or what language they speak natively - muslim families tend to have multiple copies of the quran - there are no “versions” of the quran, there has only ever been one. all muslims follow the exact same book - muslims have no concept of taking God’s name in vain, we call on God at every little inconvenience - don’t use islamic phrases if you don’t know what they mean or how to use them. we use them often, inside and outside of religious settings. in islam, it is encouraged to mention God often and we say these things very casually, but we take them very seriously - Allahu Akbar means “God is Greatest” (often said when something shocks or surprises us, or if we’re scared or daunted, or when something amazing happens, whether it be good or bad; it’s like saying “oh my god”) - Subhan Allah means “Glory be to God” (i say subhan Allah at the sky, at babies, at trees, whatever strikes me as pleasant, especially if it’s in nature) - Bismillah means “in the name of God” and it’s just something you say before you start something like eating or doing your homework - In Shaa Allah means “if God wills” (example: you’ll be famous, in shaa Allah) (it’s a reminder that the future is in God’s hands, so be humble and be hopeful)

- If you want to write mostly irreligious young adult Muslims, it would be humorous to make them literally follow nothing about the religion except making them very averse to eating pork cuz it’s haraam. You have no idea how many Muslims I know who’ll party, get drunk, smoke weed, and engage in, ahem, certain activities, but the one thing they’ll refuse is to eat pork.

- While it’s true that we are very loose with the way we mention God at nearly every occasion, we never make fun of the Prophets, God, or generally the religion. We take the sanctity of the religion and its figures very seriously because it’s blasphemy to insult them. I’ve found it’s very different from the attitude that most Christians and christianized atheists have on their religion / the religion they were raised around (easily making fun of Jesus, the concept of God, making jokes like “snow is god’s c*m”)

- People get surprised when a non-hijabi girl tells them she’s very devout and practices often, Muslim and non-Muslim alike.

- Aunties are nosy and gossip way too much, even though that’s a sin.

- Most Muslims believe in djinn because it’s part of our religion, but this belief oftentimes seems or looks to border on superstition, and a common activity amongst Muslim kids, especially cousins, is to tell djinn stories like ghost stories.

My old boss’s sister didn’t think we should be paid enough to afford smart phones because (her words) “You peasants work for us, peasants don’t deserve enough money for those things.”

I was once invited to a dinner event. Turns out there was a raffle. I mentioned that if I had known I’d have stopped at the bank for some cash. Nothing was said, but the “You don’t carry a minimum $200 everywhere?” was felt in the body language of everyone within 50 feet. Old boss would get KFC every day. He was hospitalized and had to have bits of intestine removed. First day back he was eating KFC because “Well the doctor fixed everything, so why not?”

If old boss didn’t take home a million dollars in a month the company was “Having a bad time of things.” That’s not sales, or total gain, that’s his paycheck. He owned the building so the company he owned that operated inside the building paid him $33,000 a month, and that didn’t count towards his paycheck. Monthly, his company would pay him rent greater than what he was paying me yearly, and it was so little to him that he didn’t count it as income.

To a rich person, something punishable by a fine is just a thing you have to pay for permission to do. You want to go to the movies? Sure that’s $8 a person. You want to park in the fire zone? Sure, that’s $750 for parking. No big deal.