Cabinet of Curiosities

Some of my favourite things, including a hell of a lot of fanfiction (mostly MCU and Teen Wolf). I'm seekeronthepath on Ao3

[aurpiment]

“It’s easy to assume”: someone’s misconception is about to be amiably corrected

“It’s tempting to assume”: someone’s assumption is about to be criticized

“It’s comforting to assume”: someone’s assumption is going to be read for filth

[snissel613]

why arent corals kosher

I refuse to believe that Halakha recognizes coral as a fish and not at most a plant

[knaidelmaidel]

let me get this straight, you want to try to eat it???

[snissel613]

all I’m saying that if I did, Hashem wouldn’t stop me

[knaidelmaidel]

i mean בדרך שאדם רוצה ללכת and all that, but someone should stop you

[justanormalpersin]

If it isn't edible, it doesn't need to be kosher. If you want to eat a rock, you don't have to worry about it being kosher. You still shouldn't eat rocks

its not an avera , but it is still a really dumb idea

[snissel613]

you can even argue that being dumb and eating rocks is an aveira. But it's a different aveira

[clayandsorcery]

I need goyim to understand that this is literally what passages of Talmud look like.

[cantotallyeven]

[steelwoolf]

I have questions about whether we’re eating live coral, like a parrotfish swimming around biting chunks off the reef. If we’re doing that, coral shouldn’t be kosher because the little coral animals lack fins and scales. If we’re eating the calcium carbonate deposits the corals have left behind after dying and decomposing, that’s an entirely different question.

Depending on the size and amount of coral you eat, eating coral wouldn’t be bad for you. Are you swallowing large enough chunks to cause intestinal blockages? or grinding it up and using it as an additive? People use coral as a source of calcium in vitamins.

But given that corals globally are in danger due to warming oceans, please don’t eat coral.

[snissel613]

I do t think live coral needs fins and scales to be kosher for the same reason that seaweed doesn’t need fins and scales to be kosher

[tikkunhayam]

I would argue that halachically, corals should count as shellfish. In that they live in the water but have no bones, but possibly a calcium carbonate “shell” that the soft coral animal retreats into. Even fleshy soft corals such as Xenia and the various leather corals found in the red and Mediterranean seas would likely more closely resemble slugs or clams if not considered algae.

Not to mention many species of soft or large polyp stony corals (much more edible upon initial impression, compared to small polyp stony corals) are toxic. Dying of Palythoa toxicity is NOT kosher.

[fromchaostocosmos]

Also if one where to break a piece of coral off of the main body and eat it wouldn't that violate the Miztvah the forbids from eating a part of an animal while the animal still lives?

I would argue is does.

[penrosesun]

Breaking a piece of coral off to eat it would not violate the commandment to not eat a part of a still-living animal because the coral in a colony, not a single being. It would be like eating a handful of bees out of a hive, which, while treif and also inadvisable, would not be a violation the way that eating the claw of a Florida stone crab would.

As for why someone would eat the calcium carbonate deposits left behind by dead coral, I’d have to assume that we’d be talking about someone who is doing so for some sort of mystical or pseudoscientific reason, as I can think of few culinary or nutritional uses for calcium carbonate to begin with, and none at all that you couldn’t better source from other places. If the reasoning is anything to do with spirits and crystals and energy resonances, then it may be an avera on additional grounds, by virtue of maybe being some form of avodah zara.

[lethalbutterfly]

Calcium carbonate is the same stuff as Tums, so theoretically eating dead coral could help with heartburn, but in most cases it would just be easier to find and acquire tums. That being said I would not oversimplify the diversity of the human experience to the point that I would assume an underwater heartburn emergency could never occur. It would be contrived af though.

[penrosesun]

Hmm. I suppose if people were consuming it medicinally, then it would be equivalent to the Bekhorot 7b ruling on the medicinal consumption of donkey urine (and therefore treif, but not completely ill-advised)

[keshetchai]

Oh, also good for osteoporosis, I suppose!

But yeah, it all goes back to "seems easier to just use regular ol' marble dust.

...related important question: are we sure that coral is considered alive, and an animal of any kind, like, halakhically speaking?

I mean:

Coral doesn't bleed (which is the important part about eating a still living animal)

They don't have lungs or gills

They generally don't move? (I guess corallimorphs can...kinda crawl? But otherwise no they don't move).

How is coral really different from like, fungi above water? Sure it can be a collective mass (mushrooms and their mycellium colonies!), but it's not capable of bleeding, and it doesn't have lungs or gills, and it doesn't really move. It just kinda...spreads.

I'm just saying we have to establish that coral is significantly different from like, a portobello mushroom. Fungi are kosher but aren't technically plants.

[keshetchai]

No because fungi are bottom feeders of the ground and yet mushrooms are kosher.

The issue is whether or not these are creatures according to Torah. From Leviticus 11:

These you may eat of all that live in water: anything in water, whether in the seas or in the streams, that has fins and scales—these you may eat.

But anything in the seas or in the streams that has no fins and scales, among all the swarming things of the water and among all the other living creatures that are in the water—they are an abomination for you

and an abomination for you they shall remain: you shall not eat of their flesh and you shall abominate their carcasses.

Everything in water that has no fins and scales shall be an abomination for you.

Now, I am going to reference Bible hub here mostly because they have a nice Strong's Hebrew concordance feature that sefaria doesn't have that is easy to copy and paste from.

But basically I would argue that the important words we have to distinguish here are:

the teeming

שֶׁ֣רֶץ (še·reṣ)

Noun - masculine singular construct

Strong's 8318: A swarm, active mass of minute animals

life

הַחַיָּ֖ה (ha·ḥay·yāh)

Article | Adjective - feminine singular

Strong's 2416: Alive, raw, fresh, strong, life

and creatures

נֶ֥פֶשׁ (ne·p̄eš)

Noun - feminine singular

Strong's 5315: A soul, living being, life, self, person, desire, passion, appetite, emotion

So. Is coral an active (teeming) mass of minute animals? Well. It is a living colony in the same way that mushrooms are colonies of living things. But other things that swarm or teem are like... krill. shrimp. Locusts. Flies. Ants.

Y'know, stuff that moves. Swarms. Coral doesn't teem or swarm. It's static.

Which leaves us with living and creatures.

I would argue again that "living" implies regular movement — for example, you can have living waters. (Same root word for mayyim chayyim).

But also the other terms which appear beside the root word for life/living over and over again are basically:

Creeping, moving (Strong's 7430 רָמַשׂ ramas)

Flesh (Strong's 1320 בָּשָׂר basar)

Flying or soaring (5774 עוּף)

Having a soul (or literal breath) (5315, נֶפֶשׁ)

And nefesh is of course, also the last one in that list!

So is coral alive in the way Torah usually means things are living beings? Well, coral doesn't creep or move. It also doesn't have blood (which, arguably, means it can't have a carcass. It sort of has bones! But no carcass). It...MIGHT have flesh? I'm sort of unclear about this.

It can't fly or soar.

Which leaves us with:

Do corals have flesh? and,

do corals have souls? And if not metaphorically souls, do they have breath?

Well, coral do respirate. But so do plants. And neither of them have lungs. Also according to @montereybayaquarium's website coral get oxygen from algae? (Don't worry Monterey bay aquarium no one is actually going to eat the coral, this is all hypothetical)

Coral reefs get their bright colors from the algae — called zooxanthellae — living in their tissues. The zooanthellae provide the coral polyps with oxygen and nutrients produced from photosynthesis. In return, the coral polyps provide zooanthellae with carbon dioxide (a byproduct of the polyps’ “breathing” oxygen) and shelter.

Coral polyps can have mouths, but they don't really breathe with lungs. So I'm not sure they have that kind of nefesh (breath of life). And corals are like, a bunch of skeletal base material with living polyps on the top. But are they fleshy? But all their color comes from the algae living in them.

For this I go back to the presence of blood being a big factor, because again, mushrooms have flesh but don't have blood, and so halakhically...that fungi is a plant.

Also apparently Octocorals don't have those exoskeletons? So at that point how would we know something is an octocoral versus like...a seaweed?

I think either seaweed isn't meant to be kosher, or actually corals are kosher because seaweed is. Oysters have gills and hearts. Scallops have a gajillion eyes. Really easy to see those aren't plants.

Basically if you look at a coral does it have a breath and soul, does it fly or creep, does it bleed, does it have flesh, does it move around in general? Could it possibly be a plant, halakhically speaking? (Not by scientific taxonomy!) Would bronze age folks look at it and go "yeah, that's a plant."? Also important: what IS a plant? Halakhically?

Many such questions. Anyways I don't think corals have souls.

[yedidnefesh]

So... The Gemara does seem to view coral as a tree, or at least it discusses coral as producing wood in Rosh Hashanah 23a. OP appears to be in the right that it's halachically a plant!

[buried-in-stardust]

An escape room experience

[eng by me]

[blignick]

[adobe-outdesign]

Reddit user Mixel34P created a website to see if every Pokemon is someone's favorite:

Declare your favorite Pokémon and help fill our collective Pokédex! Discover which Pokémon are loved by trainers worldwide.

At this point every Pokemon has been claimed, but I highly recommend checking it out and reading through the comments on your favs

[capnportofficial]

some of my fave responses

[rajieeeee]

some explorations of traditional garments/costume designs of different cultures and looking forward to exploring more.

[himynamesisnotemail]

[birds-in-posts]

Siberian crane (Leucogeranus leucogeranus)

[teaboot]

@voxmyriad ASDFGHJKKL

[bookoffixedstars]

Extract from The Art of Coarse Acting (1964) by Michael Green.

source

[earhartsease]

on it boss

[glassshine]

[jeyneofpoole]

nolan’s odyssey is such a textbook study on the idiocy and dangers of presentism. yes of course penelope is a modern day feminist who wants to rule ithaca by herself. they make telemachus say that GREECE IS THE GREATEST CIVILIZATION IN THE WORLD as if the entire point of the massing of achaeans at troy for one unified cause isn’t spectacular precisely because THERE IS NO CONCEPT OF A UNIFIED GREECE NATIONS DO NOT EXISTTTTTT YETTTTT. literally 101 on historical writing is making sure that you’re avoiding strict periodization because the people living in a “period” will not identify themselves that way. ever. five million cheeky nods to “the sea peoples” but we’re being cute and coy and calling them “the people from the sea.” the obsession with xenia but refusal to call it xenia yes let’s say “zeus’s law” a hundred times and reduce it to the literal expectation that any stranger could be a god in disguise. how was penelope just hanging out in the main hall of the palace with her husband’s dinner guests while they were playing with weapons with her HAIR COMPLETELY DOWN no veil no nothing just chilling casually. comical. stoppppp making movies that engage in historical viewpoints if you’re going to slather a modernized coat of paint over the top. “the past is a foreign country, they do things differently there.” or fucking whatever.

[slashfilled-mind]

I just read a bbc article that basically said "People are complaining about costumes in the Odessey not being period accurate, which is stupid because there are witches and cyclops, it's not history." And it pisses me off. Yes, the Odyssey is mythology. It is also history. It takes place in a very specific time period, in a place that was actually real and had a very real culture. Don't make an adaptation of something if you're not gonna give a shit about the source material.

[scoliosisrick]

MADE THIS CONTRAPTION TODAY :)

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

Absolutely fascinating use of free will. Was it always your life's goal to get electrocuted in the shower while your screams are drowned out by the screams of The Machine?

[kedreeva]

also have you, perchance, considered un-making it

[wizardarchetypes]

when i was a little kid (age 8 and on) i had 3 veryyy intense special interests i constantly infodumped about to anyone who gave me the time of day. these were:

The Bubonic Plague

Vampire Folklore

Tree frogs.

So as you can imagine my mom spent many years prepping me for social outings by doing a call-and-response litany with me that went "let's focus on tree frogs tonight. let's tell people about tree frogs."

[findingfeather]

Wow your mom hung out with boring people, why were NONE of them interested in the Black Death or at least the Vampire Folklore.

[penandinkprincess]

Wait, does ilya like call bars/clubs to ask if they have ginger ale? Or does he ask when there without shane?

Im also imagining him with a note on his phone for "shane clubs" with notes and rating on how much shane will like them

so ilya has an internal criteria for if shane will like a club or not (is there a place to be outside of the main action? is there a place where you can stand and the music isn't so loud? are the lights predictable or do they have a lot of strobing? etc.), and if the club meets THOSE qualifications, then he will ask at the bar if they have ginger ale. if no, out of the running as a place he will take shane. if yes, success! new Shane Friendly Club.

but it's SO fucking casual, you guys. SO fucking casual. thinking about your hookup and his preferences when he's not even with you and you're actively trying to pick up someone else is SO fucking casual. don't even worry about it.

[junkdrawertales]

Ten of Ilya Rozanov’s Designated Shane Places (it’s so casual it’s literally no problem at all. It only took like three weeks of research a minute to make!)

Club with heavily upholstered booths that muffle sound. Lots of ginger ale. Menu has several variations on a Moscow Mule

Club with a big fishtank behind the bar that Shane likes to look at when he’s overstimulated. Drinks are hipstery. Shane likes the hibiscus-peppercorn Old Fashioned.

Club that has twinkly chandelier lights that aren’t too harsh or too dim. Ginger beer instead of ginger ale. Still good though.

Club that plays weird avant-garde Québécois indie rock and doesn’t allow cameras. Large selection of Canadian whiskey.

Bar with lots of darts and pool tables if Shane is feeling competitive. Aggressively hipster. They brew their own weird probiotic soda. Shane LOVES weird probiotic soda.

Bar and grill with live jazz. They have a vegan menu. Shane likes the fried jicama sticks. Organic ginger ale.

Club with gauzy curtains hanging from the ceiling that look cool AND block cameras. No ginger ale, but Shane will have a mint julep (they are excellent)

Club playing exclusively 80s hits, weird cocktails with rosemary smoke. Every hour on the hour they drop pounds and pounds of confetti from the ceiling. Drunk Shane thinks it’s pretty.

Club with a ball pit gimmick. Ilya suggested it as a joke but Shane’s eyes got huge like a cat fixating on a bug. It’s deeply overstimulating and he can tolerate it for about 90 minutes before he has to stand outside for a bit. Very strong drinks.

Club with go-go dancers who can be bribed into letting Drunk Shane have a turn dancing in the stripper cage. Drinks irrelevant. This is Ilya’s favorite.

[bunjywunjy]

we noticed the position its actual limbs were in and spent a few minutes aggressively squatting at each other with our arms out

[395nm]

that's goddess pose

[bunjywunjy]

holy shit it sure is

[pondwitch]

recently generated a dwarf fortress world and went to start an adventurer but the only options were human and elf. confused, i decided to investigate the history of the world through legends mode. i learned that

-dwarves went extinct towards the dawn of time -almost every character was a were-tapir -there was a blind forgotten beast named Gabe -a goblin who lived to be 3 years old was deemed by the game to be one of the most important people in this world’s history -several artifacts were made by a great necromancer who lived before the dawn of time who was also an actual giraffe -did i mention everyone was a fucking were-tapir

[jimmysownworld]

i love the “hollanov has a crush on carter vaughn” take not necessarily in a “i think they would invite him to watch” way but more in a “ilya would accidentally let it slip while chirping at shane to fluster him that vaughn is at the top of their ‘would’ list and vaughn is a little thrown off and straight so he’s like “are you guys asking?” and ilya laughs and pats his shoulder and assures him “absolutely not, i do not share my shane, we just think you are good looking man, i like that you are pretty and fun and my shane likes that you are serious about hockey and have good grooming habits. is not serious, do not worry vaughny we will not be asking you to witness me and my beautiful husband ever” and vaughn low key is overjoyed about it, his teammates who are around and hear the exchange are sometimes like “that doesnt bother you? you dont find that a bit weird?” but vaugh genuinely is just like “rozanov just called me pretty and fun enough to hang out with and hollander thinks im good at hockey and clean enough for him, you could hand me a nobel peace prize and it wouldnt come close to this achievement” and eventually it gets out to the general public so vaughn is captioning his instagram posts shit like “#1 contender for being the hockey husbands third goes fishing” despite shanes mortification about this getting out and vaughns clear delight with it” way

[jimmysownworld]

carter vaughn laying on his stomach near the center of the ice on the admirals side kicking his feet and holding his head in his hands while he blows kisses to hollanov during warmups.

shane is horrifically embarrassed by this and can not meet vaughns eyes or even his body, he refuses to look at him period.

ilya laughed for damn near 5 minutes and was doubled over coughing at one point fully crying, he is delighted by this and once hes through his warmups that shane wont let him skip he skates to center ice and does the exact same thing, kicking his feet in the air, blowing kisses, little finger waves, winking at vaughn. they dont say a word the whole time they just do these actions like flirting cartoon characters stuck on loop.

the centaurs are also delighted by this, despite the knowledge that vaughn is at the top of the couples “would” list this is the incident that earns vaughnny the nickname “boyfriend” among the team. they’re playing new york? will you guys be seeing your boyfriend? new york lost the game last night? hows your boyfriend taking it? someones family member is taking a trip to new york city? hey can you guys text your boyfriend and ask for recommendations for places to eat?

the admirals give vaughn as many opportunities to drag this bit up as possible because they find it hilarious, with the exception of scott who regards this whole thing like a curse cast upon him that will last long after his death. media days are the worst for scott especially because ever since the media learn about this stupid joke they’ll get questions about it. scott any comments on the rumors that your alternative captain carter vaughn is getting between the marriage of shane hollander and ilya rozanov? he is not, vaughn does not like men. scott is there any expected tension between the admirals and the centaurs at your game next week because of carter vaughns public flirting with the couple? should the media be expecting a fight between your alternate captain and the hockey husbands? i personally dont think you should be expecting a fight if he’s flirting with both of them, but this might become a thing for hollander and rozanov and i think vaughn wouldnt mind egging it on. scott do you think your co captain has a chance of entering a relationship with shane hollander and ilya rozanov and if so how would this effect the team dynamics within the admirals? i dont think vaughnny could handle all that even if he did like men.

carter vaughn starts getting chirped at about it, if its in a homophobic way he’ll note down the name and ask for a placement from hollander and roz, and the next game he plays against that player when they inevitably bring it up again he’ll look them dead in the eyes, give them their ranking, and why hollanov wouldnt touch them with a hazmat suit on. its his second favorite thing to do, and ilya is a strong fan of this game too. this gets added to the list of reasons why vaughn is hollanovs #1 choice because ilya enjoys it so much, and privately shane delights in someone else delivering his genuine thoughts on bad hockey players with awful habits so he doesnt have to be the one to say it.