Potato-frend-blog - HellofellowHumanz.

NIMONA HAIRCUT ACQUIRED!!!

+8 HEAT RESISTANCE

+8 SWAG

+8 GENDER FUCKERY

+8 ANARCHY

METAL!!!

links to help you actually learn and understand what happened in Israel on October 7

a site that collects the October 7th survivors' stories.

an Instagram profile that also collected survivors stories.

Yoseph Hadad - an Arab-Israeli who shows what it is like to be an Arab in Israel. also explains the situation.

Israel on Twitter - the official account of the state of Israel.

Stand With Us - a nonprofit organization that fights antisemitism.

4IL - an Instagram page for Hasbara (explanation).

Visit2Israel - explains, simplifies and updates on what is happening.

I do warn you - the stories are graphic, there will be graphic pictures. but this is the situation Israel is in, and there are so many stories to share that me, as a sole person here, just cannot bring you all on my own.

SHARE THIS PLEASE, LET THE WORLD KNOW WHAT HAPPENED TO US

Writing Tips: The School Setting

The school setting trope is a narrative device that places the story's events within an educational institution. This trope capitalizes on the nostalgia of school life, leveraging the structured environment to explore a variety of themes, character dynamics, and conflicts.

Pros:

Familiarity: Readers easily grasp the setting, streamlining the introduction of complex plots.

Diverse Characters: Abundance of character types, from supportive friends to minor/major bullies to wizened mentors.

Natural Conflicts: Built-in elements like coming-of-age growth, exams, social dynamics, and extracurricular activities provide ample conflict.

Cons:

Formulaic: Due to the commonality of this setting, there's a potential for the narrative to become predictable.

Classroom Limitations: Often, the most interesting events occur outside the classroom during field trips or special events.

Contrived Stakes: The school, being a structured and safe environment, may struggle to convey a real sense of danger to the students.

Common School Tropes:

Late!: Scenarios involving characters running late.

Group Project: The teamwork and exploration of relationships through collaborative challenges.

Social Conformity: Exploring themes of individuality versus societal norms.

Prom Night: The buildup to and climax of a social event such as prom, as a backdrop for drama.

Academic Struggles: Plot points related to bad grades and their consequences.

Bullies: Delving into the complexities of bullying, from both students and teachers.

Sports and Games: The buildup to and climax of high-stakes events, as a backdrop for drama.

Vacation Time: Navigating challenges and relationships during vacation periods.

Detention: The conflicts and breaking of rules, leading up to detention.

Field Trips: Exploring the wider world and lore, while encountering conflict.

Tests: Showcasing the skill and growth of characters, while tackling the anxiety surrounding tests.

Social Structures: Examining the dynamics of school groups and hierarchies.

Graduation: Feel-good denouement, when the characters celebrate their successes and reflect on their journey together

Types of Bullies:

Goons: Unpleasant, hostile characters functioning as easy obstacles, typically following a Bigger Badder Bully.

Reasonable Bullies: Characters with legitimate reasons for their dislike of the protagonist, such as family rivalries or personal ambitions.

Villainous Bullies: Truly evil individuals collaborating with external threats or evil organizations for nefarious purposes.

Magic School Subgenre:

Adventure Within the Walls: The school itself becomes the focal point of the adventure.

Specialization in the Supercool: Schools where the subjects are about magic, monsters, superheroes, or even robots.

Wish Fulfillment: The reader is projected into a world beyond the mundane.

Trials and Tests: Incorporating trials, duels, and fights as rites of passage.

Secrecy and Intrigue: The school and its knowledge are usually secluded and hidden from the world.

Building an Alliance: The protagonist has to win over a diverse cast of characters to aid them in their fight against a great threat.

Rival from Nobility: One of the main antagonists is usually a scion of a high-status, wealthy family.

Outside Threat: The school is usually a focal point for a greater conflict taking place in the wider world. And comes under attack later in the story.

Outside Adventures: Characters sometimes leave the safety of the school for adventures in the wider world.

This is part of my Writing Tips series. Everyday I publish a writing tip to this blog.

I'm new so I don't know what is going on but I am afraid to ask.

My friend just got struck by lightning (not predicted by the weather wheel). VIKING FUNERAL!

Fun fact vikings didn't actually put their dead on boats in water and set it on fire. The fire has to be REALLY hot in order to cremate a body (which is why we have special furnaces for cremating people instead of just chucking them on your ol camp fire pit) so if they did that, there's just be flaming boats of half burned corpses washing up, because water is also cold and puts out fire.

What they ACTUALLY did was preserve the body in a mixture of alcohol and other chemicals to preserve them until they could bury them in mounds, because frozen ground is annoying to dig in. If you're rich you get a literal ship in your grave, but most people just got the outline of a ship made with rocks. They thought that was good enough to manifest a ship in death to take them to the afterlife for them, if they didn't get Valhalla.

I can't remember sources off the top of my head, but if you google it, you'll find plenty of articles about it.

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

A brief History of Mizrahi Jews in Arabic countries and Their expulsion

A\N: While I am an Ashkenazi Jew, I have done A LOT of research, and have both Iraqi friends and relatives to corroborate this with. Also, I'm petty - an Iraqi user who comments regularly on my posts seems to forget about his own country's Jewish history... Well, I hope he forgot instead of the more likely reality: It seems like Arabic people nowadays aren't aware of Jewish history in their countries since they either killed to expelled them all. Thus is born the constant argument that all Jews originated in Europe and are merely settlers in the Middle East.

I realized that what may be obvious to me won't be obvious to others since I'm a history nerd who grew up in Israel with plenty of rich archeological evidence and resources surrounding me. I'm happy to make these posts in hopes of educating others and contributing my part to ending antisemitism and prejudice. ___________________

You might have seen the following picture in one of my previous posts:

It is said that a picture is worth a thousand words. Unfortunately, in this case, it concludes hundreds of years of discrimination, violence, and exile for Mizrahi Jews. * It is important to note that numbers are slightly varied between sources, but the meaning is clear.

In a nutshell- all throughout history, the fate of Jewish people in countries where they weren't the religious majority was the same:

Discriminatory laws, blood libels, being blamed for disasters > violence & murder > Pogroms * > and eventually- exile or mass murder AKA ethnic cleansing \ genocide.

Pogrom-  the term refers to violent attacks by local non-Jewish populations on Jews in the Russian Empire and in other countries.

Every Jewish community has its own Pogrom. While my side of the family might immediately think of the Kristallnacht or persecution & pogroms in Hungary, it is different for Jews from different backgrounds. You can read about a few cases of forced conversion to Islam here.

A brief History of the land of Israel

The land of Israel has always been considered a strategic passageway, and so many empires throughout history have conquered it:

* I simply cannot accurately write 3000+ years of Jewish history in the land of Israel. I found that this video summarizes it perfectly.

Exile from the land of Israel

Jews were exiled from the land of Israel numerous times since the Assyrian empire conquered Israel in 732 BCE, to what we call "the diaspora" גולה. It was not by choice and we were persecuted everywhere we went.

Jews were not allowed to legally return to Israel until 1948 when the British mandate over the land of Israel ended and Israel was formed. Yes, even during the Holocaust.

The Jewish answer to exile - Aliyah עליה There have been 5 waves of illegal immigration from all over the world to the land of Israel before 1948, recorded in modern times.

Chart taken from Wikipedia (their chart was the best I could find in English)

Forced Conversion

Whether in conquered Israel or in exile, Jews were often forced to convert to either Christianity or Islam. The choice was between conversion or death.

*You can read more about some of the forced conversion of Jews during history here and here.

First Case study- The last jew of Peki'in, Margalit Zinati

Peki'in is an ancient village in the upper Galilee, Northern Israel. Nowadays, its population is mostly Druze.

Peki'in has had a Jewish presence since the Second Temple period, until Arab riots in the 1930s*. Meet the remaining member of the Zinatis, the only family who returned. (aish.com)

*Read more on the Arab riots of the 1930s here and here. Margalit is currently the last Jew living in the village of Peki'in . She is the last direct descendent of the Zinati Cohen family. The Zinati family's origins are dated back to the Second Temple era. The former Jewish community of Peki'in maintained a presence there since the Second Temple period (516 BCE – 70 CE). That is when the polytheistic Persian Empire conquered the land of Israel. For reference- that was approximately 500 years before Jesus was even born! "During which the Second Temple stood in the city of Jerusalem. It began with the return to Zion and subsequent reconstruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, and ended with the First Jewish–Roman War and the Roman siege of Jerusalem." (Wikipedia)

As an adult, Margalit chose to not marry so she could stay in Peki'in and continue her family's Jewish legacy in Peki'in. She later became in charge of the ancient synagogue in the village and turned her basement into a visiting center \ museum of Jewish history in Peki'in- "House of Zinati". in 2018, she lit up a torch as part of Israel's 70th Independence Day Torch lighting ceremony (which is considered an honor given to influential and trailblazing people).

-Margalit Zinati pictured in the Peki'in Synagogue yard, 2016 Picture taken from Wikipedia, uploaded by Deror Avi.

Second Case study - Iraqi Jews (Babylonian Jews \ יְהוּדִים בָּבְלִים)

Iraqi Jews are one of the oldest documented Jewish communities living in the Middle East. It is estimated that they originated around 600 BC.ת

The Farhud الفرهود הפרהוד

Unfortunately, Iraqi Jewish history ended in the same pattern I've described earlier. The Farhud was the violent mass dispossession against the Jewish population of Baghdad, Iraq between 1-2 June 1941. was the pogrom or the "violent dispossession" that was carried out against the Jewish population of Baghdad, Iraq, on 1–2 June 1941, It immediately followed the British victory in the Anglo-Iraqi War.

Background for the Farhud:

WW2- At the time, many Arabic countries in the Middle East agreed with Nazi ideology.

History of violence towards Jews.

The Anglo-Iraqi War (2–31 May 1941) - caused rising tension, and as usual, it was turned on the Jews.

personal family ties to the Farhud My relative was born in 1939 in Iraq, to a big upper-class Jewish family. Unfortunately, the mass exile of Jews in the 1950s didn't skip her family: she was stripped of her belongings and exiled to Israel along with her family. In the 1950s there were approximately 140,000 Iraqi Jews. As of 2021, there are only 4 left.

----------------- Please feel free to add anything I missed in the notes. And as usual - remember I am a human being. If you cuss or harass me, I will block and report you.

______________

Online Sources: * https://www.israelhayom.co.il/article/865383 - Hebrew article, Title means "Sad ending to a magnificent history: Only 4 Jews left in Iraq".

What was the Farhud https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farhud

History of the Jewish community in Baghdad https://cojs.org/the_jewish_community_in_baghdad_in_the_eighteenth_century-_zvi_yehuda-_nehardea-_babylonian_jewry_heritage_center-_2003/

What are Pogroms?https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/pogroms?gclid=Cj0KCQiAkeSsBhDUARIsAK3tiedM7DuwIaSQX-kRxvXTgCDxN6-zqeo_DNNFgyanSYGyGOhwu_0vfrkaAg6REALw_wcB

The last Jew of Peki'in, Margalit Zinati https://aish.com/the-last-jew-of-pekiin/

Arab riots of 1930s- https://www.gov.il/en/Departments/General/ben_zvi_30 https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-1936-arab-riots

Israel's history from ancient times & timeline : https://www.travelingisrael.com/timeline-land-israel/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=iiUIWnU-Ofk

Second Temple era - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Temple_period

Forced conversion of Jews across history- https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt18mvnct.7?seq=4

https://academic.oup.com/book/32113/chapter-abstract/268043723?redirectedFrom=fulltext

A sign every artist and crafter should have on their site and window.

When I get my site up and running I’m putting this on the Commission/Payment page.

I'm currently trying to world build a magical school for my fantasy realm. I'm having a hard time finding sources online. Any general advice for fantasy schools?

For starters, you want to have your magic system fleshed out really thoroughly. What good is teaching a bunch of kids how to use a magic system that you, the author, don't really know how it works, right!? If you haven't done this, you might check out my Brainstorming posts Here (Part 1) and Here (Part 2) to get started.

Beyond that, you need to think about some school basics:

Are all children educated in magic? Or only the most talented, the richest, or the poorest?

How does society at large feel about magic education and how does that impact the freedom and funds of the school?

(Related:) What kind of teachers are employed at the school? The best and brightest or the shlufs who couldn't make it in a "real" school? How does that affect the education of the students?

How does general education play into the lives of the students? Do they go to primary school first where they learn to read and write etc. or is that part of the their magic school curriculum?

How much danger is there in the day-to-day of the school? Is the magic difficult to use and therefore generally not a risk? Is it ubiquitous and therefore maintains some inherent balance? Is it difficult to use and therefore volatile and unpredictable?

What is the purpose of receiving a magic education and what do its students aspire to do after completing school?

I hope these help you out little bit. :)

Happy building!

site that you can type in the definition of a word and get the word

site for when you can only remember part of a word/its definition 

site that gives you words that rhyme with a word

site that gives you synonyms and antonyms

Penguins. I have over 10 stuffies and a few shirts