40 Notes

Thank you for the screencap and all the others. They are useful for reference

1st post on Tumblr. Hiccup Haddock in his THW outfit.

I’d think they’d get along ❤️🤭

Please idk how to draw turtle hands asdfghjkl

Ah, that answers a lot of questions thank you.

A little while ago you reblogged(?) a post about not using certain monsters because they belong to certain cultures unless you belong to those cultures - I’m not trying to be offensive or ignorant, I was just wondering, if enough research is done and appropriate respect is taken to those origins, is it ok to use them? I mean, is there something to be said about sharing parts of stories? Is it any different than using monsters from Greek mythology?

You’re referring to this post.

It’s complicated, but it boils down to “Since so often the research isn’t done and appropriate respect isn’t given to the originating cultures, it is better to err on the side of caution; as part of that, abstain from using those entities (especially as they’re typically presented in pop culture), and instead use these substitutes.” 

I mean, is there something to be said about sharing parts of stories?

Yes, there is something to be said about sharing–when it’s shared by someone who it belongs to.  Otherwise, it’s theft.  And cultural theft–of dominant cultures taking the “fun bits” of cultures that they find interesting and discarding the rest–is a massive problem right now.  

Let me give an example that’s particular to my culture.  My culture is Jewish–or, speaking more specifically, Rabbinic Judaism, which developed from Pharisaic Judaism after the destruction of the Holy Temple by Rome almost two millennia ago.  For the last 1900 years, my culture has been living in diaspora at the (dubious) mercy of gentiles, and we’ve developed a wide array of religiously and culturally meaningful rituals, stories, foods and so forth.  These cultural artifacts are ours, and I can say without hyperbole that we have been brutalized and killed for practicing these parts of our culture.  We have paid, in blood and lives, for our right to these practices as part of who we are.

Now, after centuries of having killed us for our culture, Christians are instead stealing bits of Rabbinic Judaism’s cultural practices for themselves.  Christian “Seders” at Passover are a thing.  Christians write thinkpieces on why they should celebrate Channukah.  After centuries of persecuting Jews for practicing Judaism, It’s considered cute and trendy to take the “fun bits” of Judaism for themselves.  (And that’s not even touching “Messianic judaism” and it’s wholesale theft of Rabbinic Judaism’s cultural practices in an effort to convert Jews by trickery).  

Imagine how I feel about that sort of theft, seeing it again and again and again…

So you’re asking me if you can use the Golem in your stories?

Well, why should you?  Do you know that the Golem was made as a protector by the head rabbi of Prague to protect the Jewish community against the Christian community during a period of repeated accusations of Blood Libel?  That it was essentially made as a defender that wouldn’t abandon us, that wouldn’t take our money and turn on us like mercenaries did, when the mobs came with torches and knives to kill the Jews who they believed were kidnapping Christian children to use their blood?  That it was a story told by Jewish parents to Jewish children that we would have a magical bulwark to stand between us and a world that wanted to kill us in horrible fashions?  

Why should you take that and get to turn it into a generic constructed monster built by a wizard as a dumb defender of his wizard’s tower when there is a perfectly acceptable substitute in the form of elementals, which don’t have that baggage of coming from an abused culture watching the stories that they’ve kept for themselves be torn away from them and used for the enjoyment of the people who persecuted them?  Why do you have to take it?  Why does your desire for it outweigh our wish that you leave it to us?

As for the difference with the Greeks–while the Greek pagans are making a comeback, the original religion of the Greeks has been destroyed and paved over with Christianity.  There’s a fundamental difference between taking from a dead culture and a living persecuted one.  

ok. I've been looking for the answer to this for a long time and I can't find it. Who actually watched the wedding night? I guess the chief and the gothi but were there any others?

WHO WATCHED THE VIKING WEDDING NIGHT?

IN OTHER WORDS, WHO WOULD OBSERVE HICCUP’S AND ASTRID’S CONSUMMATION?

Oh ho ho.  Isn’t this the million dollar question…And the answer may surprise people.

The truth is that no one watched.

I’m going to assume you’re asking this for the purpose of HTTYD, so I’m going to speak in terms of that.  And basically reconstruct the entire wedding process from start to finish.  If you only want to know about the wedding night, skip to the part in bold and then to the very end.

Keep reading

Ps. Some of the links don't work anymore due to the account being deleted or deactivated

the suffering never ends

Go back to where you came from, they said.

All these are not functional anymore

For those of you with anxiety

here’s a website that translates the time into hexidecimal colours,

here is a website where you can create your own galaxies

here is a website where you can play flow

here you can interact with organisms in different environments to see how to music changes

here you can play silk which is an interactive generative art designing website.

Here is a website where you can travel along a 3D line into the infinite unkown

here is a website where you can listen to rain with or without music

There is now a part two!

People are claiming Israel is blocking baby formula from Gaza. Do you know where this rumor comes from and is there any basis?

Hi Nonnie,

I searched through journalistic sources, and while I have found a few reports in Amrican media, which say that baby formula is hard to find in Gaza (which is no surprise if Hamas steals about 60% of all humanitarian aid entering Gaza (this was happening even before the war, that donations were being stolen by Hamas), in part to sell it to Palestinians for much higher prices (again, something that happened before this war as well), in part to produce anti-Israel propaganda, that allows Hamas to falsely claim Gazans are being deliberately starved (but divert the blame away from themselves), but as far as I can tell, there's no fact checked source that says anything about it being completely blocked. My guess is that this rumor is exactly what so many of the other anti-Israel ones are: a libel, meant to help demonize the Jewish state.

Where did this libel originate? It might be tied to the reports about the baby formula being hard to find, once again using demonizing hyperbole (stretching it from 'hard to find' to 'none is being brought in') and taking it out of context (leaving out that humanitarian aid in general, including baby formula, is hard to find in Gaza, because Hamas steals it). Another option is that they're simply relying on the horror of the story. I've found a few cases with the same claims about babies not having food / baby formula in Gaza dating back to 2017, 2010 and 2009.

It seems like COGAT, the unit in the IDF that exists solely in order to coordinate help for the Palestinians, has already heard about this rumor, and has posted its own date about this, which refutes the rumor and specifies how much baby formula has been allowed in, and that there are no restrictions on any humanitarian aid (posted Mar 21):

But what if people don't trust the IDF's word? Well, then how about that of organizations which are def pro-Palestinian, ones which have been asking for people's donations to provide Gazans with humanitarian aid, and who claim that they've delievered baby formula inside Gaza? Since Israel approves of anything going in, this couldn't have happened (or be posted about publicly) if Israel were blocking all baby formula from entering Gaza.

Or how about the word of the Jordanians, fellow Arabs, who reported that their air drops of humanitarian aid in Gaza include baby formula? And again, nothing gets air dropped in Gaza without Israel's approval.

I hope this helps!

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)