2:08 am

i dont support weirdos.

[catasters]

[changan-moon]

How to see whether a Chinese handmade teapot is well done or not - quality of the spout is an important standard. 

cr: 承启 建水紫陶

[megacarapa]

[malamente1992]

https://www.instagram.com/p/BrictIKgL5e/

[sisterofiris]

The more I’ve studied ancient history, the more firmly I’ve come to believe that anyone who studies an ancient civilisation should study the history and culture of its modern descendants, too. This is for three main reasons.

The first is simply a matter of respect. Many populations living in the same area as an illustrious ancient civilisation have been dismissed by Western scholars, and treated as if they know nothing and couldn’t have anything to bring to the table. Take the Greeks: a large number of 19th century scholars (and a significantly smaller and less vocal, but still tragically present number of modern scholars) were vested in portraying modern and ancient Greeks as different, and the modern population as degenerate and unworthy of their ancestors. This was used as a justification for looting Greek artefacts, and bringing them to more “civilised” Western countries where they would be properly taken care of. The same happened to many, if not all civilisations of the ancient Mediterranean. I think it’s important for academics to openly distance ourselves from this past, acknowledge the relationship between ancient and modern people, and value them equally instead of treating the latter as inferior.

This ties into the second reason, which is that modern populations often do have something to bring to the table. They have a unique relationship with their surroundings, history and culture, that outsiders do not. An Italian person who has always lived in Italy knows its nature and climate, and will instinctively understand, for example, why a certain Roman deity was associated with a certain time of the year. An Egyptian person might still be cooking a variation of an ancient Egyptian dish. A Greek person was raised within the Greek mentality, and even though much has changed in the last two thousand years, bits of that mentality will still be recognisable to them in ancient texts. This is even true of areas with shifting populations and changing influences: I remember one of my lecturers, who grew up in Syria, pointing out a tradition in the Epic of Gilgamesh that his older relatives still uphold.

As said above, these people are often dismissed by academics as uneducated, biased, or not the genuine descendants of the ancient civilisation in question. I’m not saying modern locals can’t be any of those things. But the knee-jerk reaction of rejecting all of them with no other justification than this stereotype is bad academia, full stop. At worst, their input is useless, but at best, it’s a valuable source that we are choosing to ignore.

And this is where the third reason comes in. Studying modern cultures and history enables us to recognise those biases. Academia does not exist in a vacuum; every academic, wherever they come from, is influenced by their cultural and historical background. Quite often, this can become political too. A North Macedonian scholar writing about whether ancient Macedonian was its own language or a dialect of Greek, or a Turkish scholar writing about the links between the Hittites and modern Turkish culture, may not be entirely objective - but you wouldn’t notice that without knowing about modern relations between Greece and North Macedonia, or the role of Hittitology in the creation of modern Turkey.

Learning about the people who live in the area you study, their culture and their history is recognising that everything, ancient and modern, is intertwined. Neither can be taken separately. Many of us who study history do so because of what it teaches us about the current world; but it won’t teach us much if we don’t know that world to begin with.

[the-bright-path-deactivated2021]

[seongpinkhwa]

you guys i’m so fucking scared

[seongpinkhwa]

the pandemic is absolutely thriving in south asia. i’m not kidding. you might think the US is bad, but the situation in countries like india (which literally surpassed the US for the world’d highest single-day increase in cases) and nepal (which has seen a huge spike in cases recently) is genuinely reached horrible new highs. i have most of my extended family living in nepal, and they can’t go to the hospital for non-covid related issues. there’s barely any social distancing, around 250,000 people are homeless and have no access to proper sanitary resources, and everyone is terrified due to multiple conspiracies about the disease that are spreading like wildfire. the government is incompetent and has barely done anything to help people, and desperation is spreading. india is a bigger country with more resources, and is also suffering, but people in nepal, particularly the ones who live in slums or villages, are prime targets for the virus and will receive absolutely nothing from the government. if you are able, please donate to this fund to support children, particularly orphans, who have been left vulnerable by the effects of the pandemic in nepal. they need your help.

[radicalurbanista]

you can’t support autistic people and support the police. No amount of paint jobs or sensitivity training can stop police from killing with impunity

[milk-and-violets]

I present y’all with:

the quiz to finally end the discourse

Are you a Soldier, A Poet, or A King?

warning, this quiz goes unexpectedly hard

[olivicat]

[archivesobegoned]

no longer a fandom blog, want this to be a writing blog and all things romantic

[widening-skies]

“Socrates said, “The misuse of language induces evil in the soul.” He wasn’t talking about grammar. To misuse language is to use it the way politicians and advertisers do, for profit, without taking responsibility for what the words mean. Language used as a means to get power or make money goes wrong: it lies. Language used as an end in itself, to sing a poem or tell a story, goes right, goes towards the truth. A writer is a person who cares what words mean, what they say, how they say it. Writers know words are their way towards truth and freedom, and so they use them with care, with thought, with fear, with delight. By using words well they strengthen their souls. Story-tellers and poets spend their lives learning that skill and art of using words well. And their words make the souls of their readers stronger, brighter, deeper.”

— Ursula K. Le Guin (via kuanios)

[tamizhnadu]

really cool of google doodle to leave out lesbians

[tamizhnadu]

the flag was in the fucking draft? it was in the original version and they consciously chose to remove it???

[hundondestiny]

the lesbian flag was in EVERY ONE of these concepts so what the fuck happened

[halemmerich]

The creator fucking left us out solely bc the creator said some “aphobic” things and decided ppl who don’t fuck r more a part of the community THAN THE GOD DAMN L

[r-1999-g]

And now you understand how people who identify as literally any other sexuality other than lesbian or gay feel.

We are constantly being left out of everything and being shit on by other members of the “community”

[routins-bye-deactivated20200724]

please shut the fuck up

[andywarnercomics]

In honor of Day of the Dead, here’s a repost of my comic about the San Francisco Columbarium and the man who spent 26 years restoring it.

This comic originally appeared on Medium at The Nib. Go check out my other work there.

[true-me-snafu]

Emmitt and the Columbarium.

[italeteller]

HEY YOU YEAH YOU

DO YOU LIKE FAKE MARRIAGE STORIES?

DO YOU LIKE SPIES??

DO YOU LIKE SMOL CHILDREN WITH PSYCHIC POWERS???

THEN SIT THE FUCK DOWN CAUSE I HAVE A NEW MANGA FOR YOU

MEET SPY X FAMILY

THE MAN IS AGENT TWILIGHT, A SPY WHO HAS DISCARDED EVERYTHING ABOUT HIS PAST IN OrDER TO WORK FOR THE COUNTRY OF WESTALIS IN OPPOSITION TO THE COUNTRY OF OSTANIA

KINDA COLD WAR-ISH

HE KICKS ASS, HAS ALL THE GADGETS AND CAN CREATE MISSION IMPOSSIBLE-LIKE FACE-CHANGING MASKS

HE’S THE KINDA GUY YOU REALLY DON’T WANNA FUCK AROUND WITH

FOR HIS NEXT JOB HE’S GOTTA TAKE OUT A POLITICIAN WHO ONLY COMES OUT IN PUBLIC FOR HIS SON’S ELITE SCHOOL REUNIONS

AND TO INFILTRATE THAT AGENT TWILIGHT IS GONNA NEED

*DRUM THE FUCKING ROLLS*

TO ADOPT A KID!

THIS IS ANYA

SHE SMOL

SHE CUTE

SHE A RUNAWAY CHILD FROM AN UNDERGROUND EXPERIMENT THAT GAVE HER THE POWER TO READ PEOPLE’S THOUGHTS

SHE MAY HAVE HORNS, ANTENNAE OR JUST A BOW, I’M NOT SURE

SHE LEARNS TWILIGHT IS A SPY AND TRICKS HIM INTO ADOPTING HER AND THUS BEGINS THE FAKE!PARENT AND CHILD SHENANIGANS WITH A HEALTHY DOSE OF CUTE BONDING

CAN YOU FEEL THE DIABETES YET

BUT THE SCHOOL ALSO REQUIRES MEETINGS TO BE WITH BOTH PARENTS, SO TWILIGHT NEEDS TO FIND A WIFE

THUS ENTERS YORU BRIAR

SHE’S A 27-YEAR-OLD OFFICE WALLFLOWER

SHE’S AN ORPHAN WHO RAISED HER YOUNGER BROTHER ON HER OWN

SHE STICKS HER LEGGY UP REAL FAR

SHE’S ALSO A HITWOMAN UNDER THE CODENAME “THORN PRINCESS” WHO ESPECIALIZES IN KILLING LOADS OF PEOPLE WITH HUGE NEEDLES AND CAN PUNCH YOU SO HARD YOU’LL THANK HER

(SHE’S STRONGER THAN TWILIGHT TOO)

WHEN SHE LIES TO HER BROTHER ABOUT HAVING A BOYFRIEND TO GET HIM OFF HER BACK, HER BROTHER INSISTS IN MEETING THE MAN PERSONALLY AND WILL EVEN REJECT A JOB PROMOTION UNTIL THEY MEET

AND SO THESE TWO CASUALLY MEET AND WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM ANYA, WHO FINDS OUT YORU IS A HITWOMAN AND REALIZES HAVING A SPY AND A HITWOMAN FOR PARENTS WOULD BE ENTERTAINING AS ALL HELL, THEY DECIDE TO FAKE A RELATIONSHIP TO HELP EACH OTHER’S GOALS

TWILIGHT WILL PRETEND TO BE YORU’S BOYFRIEND TO GET HER BROTHER OFF HER BACK

YORU WILL PRETEND TO BE TWILIGHT’S WIFE SO ANYA CAN GET IN THE ELITE SCHOOL

BUT BECAUSE THE POLITICAL CLIMATE IS SO HEAVY WITH SUSPICION AND PEOPLE ARE BEING FALSELY ACCUSED TO BEING SPIES ALL THE TIME, THEY DECIDE TO FAKE-MARRY FOR REAL, JUST TO APPEAR LIKE A NORMAL COUPLE AND THROW SUSPICION OFF THEM AND THEIR RESPECTIVE SECRET JOBS

BUT JUST UNTIL THEY MEET THEIR GOALS RIGHT GUYS

THERE’S DEFINITELY NOT GONNA BE ANY REAL FEELINGS DEVELOPING OR ANYTHING RIGHT GUYS

YES THAT IS A GRENADE PIN TWILIGHT USED AS A WEDDING RING GUYS

AND YOU KNOW WHAT THE ACTUAL, GREATEST THING IS? NOBODY KNOWS THE OTHER PARTY’S SECRET

TWILIGHT DOESN’T KNOW YORU IS A HITWOMAN

YORU DOESN’T KNOW TWILIGHT IS A SPY

NOBODY KNOWS ANYA IS PSYCHIC

ANYA KNOWS EVERYTHING BUT PRETENDS NOT TO SO SHE CAN HAVE A FAMILY

IT’S SUCH A STUPID, HILARIOUS CLUSTERFUCK THAT WILL BLOW UP IN GOD KNOWS WHICH WAY AND I CAN’T FUCKING WAIT FOR IT

THUS FAR THERE’S TWO CHAPTERS OUT, 50 PAGES EACH. IT RELEASES ON THE SHONEN JUMP APP BI-MONTHLY WHICH IS A LONG WAIT BUT OH GOD SO FUCKING WORTH IT

AND I HOPE THIS POST WILL CONVINCE MORE PEOPLE TO READ IT AND KEEP IT RUNNING FOR MANY YEARS TO COME

[fenrirlives]

Just read chapter 4 and can confirm

This manga is fantastic so far

[obobro]

☔

[fandomlife-confessions]