born on the cob

humperdink: "my people. [pause] among us."

[the crowd cheers]

humperdink: "sus."

[the crowd cheers again]

And, as an example, he gave us this monstrosity:

And, what’s even worse— I fucking UNDERSTOOD IT. I had to EXPLAIN this to my fucking sociology class.

Kittens can’t regulate their own body temperature. That’s why they pile up.

Cats see us as colony members.

Masha saw a kitten that was on its own, no mommy, no other kittens to cuddle with. She instinctively knew that was a cold kitten. She knew that a kitten alone on a cold night was very likely to die. Because a kitten would have died too.

So, all she was doing was what any good colony member does - protecting the abandoned kitten. Then when the abandoned kitten’s mommy didn’t come back, she called the rest of the colony for help.

People have this bizarre idea that housecats don’t have a social sense. They do, and it saved this kid’s life. And possibly Masha’s too, as life on the streets is dangerous for a kitty.

The pyramids were built by contemporary workers who received wages and were fed and taken care of during construction

The Dendera “lightbulb” is a representation of the creation myth and has nothing to do with electricity

We didn’t find “““copper wiring””” in the great pyramid either

Hatshepsut wasn’t transgender

The gods didn’t actually have animal heads

Hieroglyphs aren’t mysteriously magical; they’re just a language (seriously we have shopping lists and work rosters and even ancient erotica)

The ancient Egyptian ethnicity wasn’t homogeneous

While the Egyptians were fine-ass astronomers they didn’t align any of their enormous and/or important buildings to modern star constellations, because constellations look very different now than they did ~5000 years ago 

Speaking of that particular sphinx, the Napoleonic expedition is not responsible for its missing nose

Akhenaten was not a “heretic” by contemporary standards

Ramses II appropriated a lot of his predecessors’ buildings/reliefs and isn’t really deserving of the epithet “the Great”

It was not, in fact, practice to shave off eyebrows after cats died; Herodotus lied about that

Here are some vetted Egyptological books/sources (that are by and large appropriate for a lay-audience) you can find most, if not all of the above:

Lehner, M., The Complete Pyramids

Wilkinson, R. H., The Complete Temples of Ancient Egypt

Hornung, E., The One and the Many: Conceptions of God in Ancient Egypt

Dunand, F. & Zivie-Coche, C., Gods and Men in Egypt

Kemp, B., Ancient Egypt: Anatomy of a Civilization

Bard, K., An Introduction to the Archaeology of Ancient Egypt

Stevenson Smith, W., The Art and Architecture of Ancient Egypt

Kitchen, K. A., The Life and Times of Ramesses II, King of Egypt

Sweeney, D., Sex and Gender (in Ancient Egypt)

McDowell, A. G., Village Life in Ancient Egypt:  Laundry Lists and Love Songs

If you can’t imagine your character in silly or embarrassing situations without feeling very personally offended; take a step back, kick your character off their pedestal and let them breathe.

Let them feel and react in the same way you and others do. Let them laugh at dumb things, let them trip and fall on their face a few times. Let them experience life.