Latest Posts by elpickett - Page 6

I love this show with all my heart

it snowed here last weekend (we made two snowmen and a snow dalek) and leia discovered snow for the first time! the front door was open so she wandered out to see what was going on, immediately got cold, and then saw that everything was white, panicked, and ran back inside. in conclusion, leia is not a fan.

Cats and snow don’t mix

I finally got around to watching the rest of good omens!!!! It was absolutely brilliant I really loved it.

Thoughts on the show vs. the book:

I am very glad Pepper still got a sword

Adam was creepier than I remember him being in the book

I really loved Anathema! Especially when she burns the second prophecy book

I miss the second set of the horseman of the apocalypse :-(

I really liked Gabriel! It was really interesting seeing the parallels between heaven and hell and how much more similar to each other they are compared to the humans

Yeah in conclusion it was great and I love all the characters but especially Pepper

Anathema introducing herself

2020 was a shit show

i am making garlic bread for dinner and this is what I’m going to look like

garlic bread.

How to always get the best deals on everything.

The Full Collection of Pride Pun t-shirt designs to date

thanks for tagging me!!!

3 ships:

Joe x Nicky from the old guard. I watched this movie and then made all of my friends watch it too. I just loved how woven into the story their relationship was. TLDR: I just really like good representation (and also historical fanfic (crusades!!! Literally any other period after 1100 and it isn’t an AU!!!))

Amy Pond x Rory Williams (do they have a ship name? I should probs find out). I just.... love the Ponds. So much. 11 was my first doctor and to this day they are my favourite companions and I love them both and i love their relationship

Tessa x Will or Tessa x Jem from The Infernal Devices. Both god tier ships. The Victorian setting.... the angst,,,,, the absolute unconditional love!!! Especially when they are older and all the kids just look at them and go yes,,, I want that.

Last movie I watched:

The corpse bride! It was really good actually I am a big fan

Last song I listened to:

Either Breathe from In the Heights or Mad Woman from Folklore. I am a big musicals person and also a Taylor Swift fan in amongst the rock and alternative stuff.

Currently watching: The mandalorian! I love the angsty mandalorian and his cute little baby. I’m about to start season two tonight!

Currently reading: Ysabel by GGK. Oo boo I am invested it has history and drama and suspense and throwback slang and also magic so yeah it contains a great many things I like!

Currently craving: either chocolate or human contact. It’s fine schools on Monday so I’ll get hugs off my friends then!

Rules: Tag 9 people who you want to know better/catch up with and then answer these questions. I was tagged by @hlmoorewrites (BTW, I can't wait to read your books)

3 Ships: Rory and Jess from Gilmore Girls. Look, I get the love for Dean but he was never smart enough for her and broke her heart three times; once because she didn't say "I love you" after 3 months and needed some time to sort through everything (kind of like she always does), once because of her feelings for Jess (and okay, I cant fault him for that) but the last time was because of his inferiority issues and I can't stand that. And teice it was in front of a ton of people! He wasn't a good boyfriend. And I hate that Lorelai thought he was because he helped her out so much. I hate that Rpry never saw him for what he was. I mean, even the whole fight between him and Jess was started by Dean. And his whole "I don't have to be nice anymore because I'm not with her but you can't do shit because you are" speech to Jess just made me want to watch Jess hit him. And Logan sucks in ways I don't have to explain. But Jess......he loved her. And yes, he hurt her while he was growing up, but he got better and he apologized and he stood there, beside her, as her friend every time. He helped her get her life back on track after Mitchum destroyed her. Hes got the same love of books, the same taste in music, the same quiet resolve, and he's just perfect for her.

Harry Dresden and Karrin Murphy and I will never forgive Jim Butcher for what he did. Ever.

Eliot Spencer and Damien Moreau from Leverage. Not for any good reasons. Only for the fact that they would be a great destructive force. And I really enjoy the idea of those two tearing apart the world together. I also get a small thrill from the thought of Eliot clawing his way out of hell. Its fun.

Last Song I listened To: Valerie by Ghost of the Robot. James Marsters can sing

Last Movie I watched: wow, you picked the best moment because I haven't wanted to watch anything but movies post gilmore girls. The last one was Riddick, as I ended that trilogy and following on the heels of the Fast and Furious Franchise (except parts 2-4, I couldn't care less for them, and if you're noticing a running theme here, its Vin Deisel. One of my favorite actors because realism be damned is what he does best)

Currently Watching: um......nothing. I just finished Riddick and hadn't gotten around to watching something else. I think I'm gonna re-watch Newsroom by Aaron Sorvino. I'm in the mood for feel good and quick witted.

Currently Reading: Rodham by Curtis Sittenfield, The Last Guardian by Eion Colfer, Harleen the comic book, Minion by L.A Banks and Revan. Im just......bouncing back and forth a lot.

Currently Craving: mental stimulation of a sort. I'm bored but on a mental plane. I wanna do something. Don't know what it is yet.

Tagging: @cattorneyatlaw @ace-feminist @breelandwalker @thevagaries @missmetal910 @catgirl9696 @elizabethpickett @sticksandstonesmaybreakmeblog @random-blog-i-cant-delete @gotmehookedonthekpop and anyone else who feels like it.

an accurate representation of my tumblr dashboard

Me, a British person watching the US election right now:

My other suggestion for yoga is down dog! It’s free if you’re in education until January I believe and is great.

I believe in free education, one that’s available to everyone; no matter their race, gender, age, wealth, etc… This masterpost was created for every knowledge hungry individual out there. I hope it will serve you well. Enjoy!

FREE ONLINE COURSES (here are listed websites that provide huge variety of courses)

Alison 

Coursera

FutureLearn

open2study

Khan Academy

edX

P2P U

Academic Earth

iversity

Stanford Online

MIT Open Courseware

Open Yale Courses

BBC Learning

OpenLearn

Carnegie Mellon University OLI

University of Reddit

Saylor

IDEAS, INSPIRATION & NEWS (websites which deliver educational content meant to entertain you and stimulate your brain)

TED

FORA

Big Think 

99u

BBC Future

Seriously Amazing

How Stuff Works

Discovery News

National Geographic

Science News

Popular Science

IFLScience

YouTube Edu

NewScientist

DIY & HOW-TO’S (Don’t know how to do that? Want to learn how to do it yourself? Here are some great websites.)

wikiHow

Wonder How To

instructables

eHow

Howcast

MAKE

Do it yourself

FREE TEXTBOOKS & E-BOOKS

OpenStax CNX

Open Textbooks

Bookboon

Textbook Revolution

E-books Directory

FullBooks

Books Should Be Free

Classic Reader

Read Print

Project Gutenberg

AudioBooks For Free

LibriVox

Poem Hunter

Bartleby

MIT Classics

Many Books

Open Textbooks BCcampus

Open Textbook Library

WikiBooks

SCIENTIFIC ARTICLES & JOURNALS

Directory of Open Access Journals

Scitable

PLOS

Wiley Open Access

Springer Open

Oxford Open

Elsevier Open Access

ArXiv

Open Access Library

LEARN:

1. LANGUAGES

Duolingo

BBC Languages

Learn A Language

101languages

Memrise

Livemocha

Foreign Services Institute

My Languages

Surface Languages

Lingualia

OmniGlot

OpenCulture’s Language links

2. COMPUTER SCIENCE & PROGRAMMING

Codecademy

Programmr

GA Dash

CodeHS

w3schools

Code Avengers

Codelearn

The Code Player

Code School

Code.org

Programming Motherf*?$%#

Bento

Bucky’s room

WiBit

Learn Code the Hard Way

Mozilla Developer Network

Microsoft Virtual Academy

3. YOGA & MEDITATION

Learning Yoga

Learn Meditation

Yome

Free Meditation

Online Meditation

Do Yoga With Me

Yoga Learning Center

4. PHOTOGRAPHY & FILMMAKING

Exposure Guide

The Bastards Book of Photography

Cambridge in Color

Best Photo Lessons

Photography Course

Production Now

nyvs

Learn About Film

Film School Online

5. DRAWING & PAINTING

Enliighten

Ctrl+Paint

ArtGraphica

Google Cultural Institute

Drawspace

DragoArt

WetCanvas

6. INSTRUMENTS & MUSIC THEORY

Music Theory

Teoria

Music Theory Videos

Furmanczyk Academy of Music

Dave Conservatoire

Petrucci Music Library

Justin Guitar

Guitar Lessons

Piano Lessons

Zebra Keys

Play Bass Now

7. OTHER UNCATEGORIZED SKILLS

Investopedia

The Chess Website

Chesscademy

Chess.com

Spreeder

ReadSpeeder

First Aid for Free

First Aid Web

NHS Choices

Wolfram Demonstrations Project

Please feel free to add more learning focused websites. 

*There are a lot more learning websites out there, but I picked the ones that are, as far as I’m aware, completely free and in my opinion the best/ most useful.

so uhhh apparently people follow me now so tell me a random fact about yourself! Mine is that my favourite flower is a dahlia

a midsummer night’s meme

anything linen

ppl w adhd and autism reblog and add what texture is so awful it haunts your dreams its okay if its incredibly specific ill go first: scratching my nails on a car

pls look at my Cool Power Point that i spent way too long making

Yusuf ibn Ibrahim al-Tayyib  al-Kaysani’s Ethnicity

So I’ve read a lot of different fics and wanted to clarify the different terms I’ve seen applied to Yusuf. I’ll reference what is cannon, but more importantly I want to clarify that these terms are not synonyms. Not all Mediterranean/middle-eastern brown Arabic-speakers are the same.

Saracen: This is a historical term no longer used, but it was widespread in Europe during the period when Joe and Nicky are supposed to have met. It came to be used in place of “muslim” or “pagan” to describe someone. So, when you have Nicky call Joe “Saracen” you are both showing the narrow-mindedness of medieval Europe and only committing yourself to the fact that Joe practices Islam. However, this is more akin to a cultural slur than something Joe would every apply to himself. It’s not an ethnicity to Joe, it’s an insult. Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saracen

Maghrebhi: This references a region of Northwest Africa called “the Magreb” (“the west” in Arabic) and is similar to saying something like “Eastern European” to describe oneself. The real actor, Marwan Kenzari, is the son of Tunisian immigrants and this ethnicity term is one that he might use for himself. I believe this is accurate to cannon as well. This is historically accurate as well, an identity label that existed at the time. Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maghreb

Moor: This is the European counterpart to Magrebhi which was later expanded to cover Arabs as well. This is something that Nicky might call Joe without meaning to insult, but not something that Joe would call himself. I haven’t seen this one pop up yet, but I figured that I would add it. The historical term was actually Mauri which is fun to spell. Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moors

Berber or Amazigh/Imazighen (plural) : Berber is both largely anachronistic and could be considered offensive. The region of Northwest Africa did not come to be commonly known are the Barbary coast until the 1500s CE. Furthermore, the term originates from the Greek for “Barbarian”…as in calling the inhabitants of the area barbarians as a name. It is understandably confusing as the term “Berber” is totally normalized in historical sources in English. The name originating within this language group to describe the people is romanized as “Amazigh” (singular) but appears to be anachronistic. It would be better to reference a specific tribal group or region like “Numidian” (reference to a 200 BCE indigenous empire) for an ethnicity. Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbary_Coast, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berbers, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numidians

Arab/Arabian: This one gets me mad. The Maghreb was conquered by the Arabic empire. Arab originally referred to the Arabian peninsula which is thousands of miles away. Calling Joe “Arab” is like calling Booker “Roman” (but Gualle was controlled by the Roman Empire, so the French are Roman). Modern usage has blended the ethnicity across the former Islamic Empires because of conquest and the eventual ethnic blending. If you are going to refer to him this way, be reflective about it: it’s the result of the eradication of indigenous cultures. What gets me the most upset is realizing it’s probably just uniformed white writers thinking “speaks Arabic and is from a region I consider desert” but it’s very annoying. Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabs

Seljuk: This derives from the Seljuq dynasty and references Turkish-Persian (modern Turkey, Iran, and the surrounding areas) people. The Seljuk Turks never occupied the Maghreb, though it is the correct time period. Maybe Joe is fighting with the Seljuk Turks, but he is not one. Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seljuq_dynasty

TL;DR: some of the identity terms I’ve seen thrown around are either plain wrong or could be considered offensive. There’s a big difference in using the language of the inhabitants of a place and the language of foreigners to describe someone’s ethnicity and we as a fandom can do better. Also, the whole fandom is looking up Ligurian and Italian for Nicky, so let’s do better for Joe…

It!

Water moodboard

Melanie: I can't kill you now we've saved the train together. It'd be against my moral compass.

Layton: Your moral compass is a fucking roulette wheel

Head Engineer, Melanie Cavill

Melanie: I created balance.

Layton: You ruined a perfectly good three-quarters of the population is what you did! Look at them! They have anxiety!

is my blog now the old guard?? yes.

the old guard + cards against humanity (1/?)

it’s really august huh… like 8 whole months have passed……….. disgusting

I'm just curious (still learning) at what point after 1100 AD would Joe and Nicky been in actual danger due to homophobia? At what point would they have to start lying to people about the nature of their amazing relationship, just to stay safe? Thanks!

(This is in reference to this post, in which I skimmed over like 900 years of sociological changes in identity formation in very very broad strokes.)

So. Here’s the thing. As “western” queer people in the modern world, I think we highly associate safety with being able to be out of the closet. Can I kiss my partner in public or walk down the street holding hands without fear of encountering hate speech or physical violence? Can I tell my friends, family and coworkers about my relationship without fear of social ostracization or economic consequences?

But that’s a very modern perspective. Between “pride parade!!” and “we will definitely be murdered if anyone finds out we are lovers,” there is...A LOT of space for different kinds of historical queer experience.

So it’s not so much that Yusuf and Nicolò could be safely “out of the closet” in 12th century Baghdad but not in 19th century London. It’s not quite as far from that as you might think. But they wouldn’t have thought about it that way.

In the first few hundred years of their existence, the Islamic world was...full of contradictions when it came to homosexuality. You had a strong taboo against adult men being the receptive partner in penetrative sex, but you also had poets--like, the most famous poets of their times--writing tons of homoerotic poetry about desiring young men and boys, and that was normal and even celebrated. (If you’re familiar with the sexual mores of ancient Greece...lots of similarities here.) You had clerics writing about how there should be harsh punishments for “sodomy,” but in practice in everyday life very, very few people were ever actually disciplined in the legal system for something like that. And other forms of sexual activity between men, like kissing and various forms of non-penetrative sex, were just...not a big deal. At the same time there was kind of an unspoken “don’t ask, don’t tell” social contract around sex between men. Like, we know this thing is definitely happening, and we’re not going to talk about it, and that’s what makes it socially acceptable to continue happening. So you can have a society that in the written, religious record looks fairly intolerant toward sex between men; in practice is actually quite tolerant; where everyone sort of knows things about certain people, but where no one is really “out” in the modern sense of the terms.

At the same time, pretty much everywhere in the world at this time but definitely in the Middle East, casual touch between men was much more normalized. Two men holding hands or linking arms when walking down the street, sitting pressed up next to each other, falling asleep with your head on your male companion’s shoulder...a whole range of things that look decidedly snuggly to our modern gaze would have been totally acceptable between friends of the same gender, and would not have been considered sexual in any way. (This is still true in much of the Middle East today.)

So you can easily imagine a scenario where, like, Nicolò is lounging with his head on Yusuf’s shoulder, eating dates and listening to some saucy Abu Nuwas poem being recited, and then they go back to their private quarters and they have as much sex as they want. Are they “out”? Not really. Is anyone bothering them about how they’re living their lives? Not in the slightest. Do some people in that room see them and know? Probably, but that’s their private business and we’re not gonna talk about it. Frankly that sounds like a pretty sweet existence for a 12th century queer.

To be fair, they have a few advantages. They’re men, which means no one will really question them traveling together, without wives or families. They can easily say they’re friends or business partners and no one will really give it a second thought. I’m sure having to break off contact with their families was sad, but it’s also the case that there’s no one around asking when they’re going to get married to a woman and have children so we have someone to inherit the family business. It gives them a kind of freedom that a lot of other queer people around them wouldn’t have had.

I think once they meet up with Andy and Quynh, they do do things like pretending to be two married couples traveling together. But that’s more because of sexism, because two unmarried women traveling with two men who were not their husbands would turn some heads.

In Europe at the time, Christian theology is pretty not-into all kinds of non-procreative sex, but sex between men is not necessarily viewed as a worse sin than, say, masturbation, or sex between men and women out of wedlock. And it’s like, a category of sin that a lot of people are doing all the time, so if you were to confess such a thing to your local priest, you would be told to do penance but the consequences would be fairly mild. And many of the same things regarding casual touch hold true. Various rituals of kissing, including men kissing men on the mouth, are used as greetings, to seal contracts, and as part of mass.

Medieval Europe also had a concept variously called passionate, romantic, or chivalric friendship--close relationships between two people of the same gender that could be long-lasting, physically affectionate, emotionally intense in a way we would today read as romantic, and (allegedly) celibate. Were some of these passionate friendships actually queer relationships with a sexual component that just wasn’t talked about? Probably. Were some of them what we would define as queerplatonic or homoromantic asexual relationships today? Probably. Is it even useful to try to stuff these experiences into modern relationship categories? Debatable. The point is...the borders between what was defined as friendship, romance and love were different. Two men who traveled together, slept in the same bed, shared resources, were emotionally intimate with each other, and otherwise entwined their lives would not necessarily have been assumed to be sex partners in medieval Europe. And (I think this is the important part) Yusuf and Nicolò would not necessarily have seen being perceived as passionate friends as “hiding” the true nature of their relationship or as assigning some lesser value to it.

In terms of how they are perceived in public, I think things really don’t start to change until the early 20th century. It’s a gradual process, but over the first half of the 20th century, more or less, affectionate touch between men becomes defined as “gay” and a mainstream (straight) masculinity that is concerned with defining itself as “not gay” emerges. Affectionate touch, and then any show of loving emotion between men, gradually becomes less and less acceptable, to a degree that probably seems absurd to two 900-year-old Mediterraneans. (The absurdity is really well-expressed in the van scene, which is literally like “Bro is it gay to [checks notes]...express concern about the well-being of the person you were just violently kidnapped with?”)

Like, on the one hand, you have queer people talking openly about their sexuality in ways that were not an option at earlier times in their lives. But at the same time you have to be careful holding hands walking down the high street now because someone might chuck an empty beer bottle at you. Must’ve been a real wild transition for them.

Read more here:

Vice

Adobe Tells Users They Can Get Sued for Using Old Versions of Photoshop

"You are no longer licensed to use the software," Adobe told them.

Apropos of nothing let me say that while I absolutely agree that Joe and Nicky’s “Depends on the century/We fight for what we think is right” answer to Nile’s question about whether they’re the good guys is partially a reference to their murder-related meet-cute situation, when it comes to who might be feeling guilty about the decisions that led them there…one (1) person in that relationship signed up to travel to a foreign land and conquer a city full of people (which, famously, ended in a massacre) on the grounds of My Religion Says We Should Be In Charge Here, and his name is not Yusuf ibn Ibrahim ibn Muhammad al-Kaysani. 

Leia and Cassie say wash your hands and stay inside and also that they are enjoying exploring the outside world

A list of resources for beginning/intermediate musicians!

Woodwinds 🎼

(A quick note - cork grease is an absolute must for all woodwind instruments EXCEPT the flute. Please for the love of all that is holy do not put cork grease on your flute. It will tarnish the joints and can cause them to get stuck together.)

Flute

How to Clean a Flute: DO NOT PUT CORK GREASE ON YOUR BABY.

Basic Flute Warmups

Oboe

How to Clean an Oboe

Basic Oboe Warmups

How Your Reeds Are Made: See why they’re so expensive now?

Clarinet

How to Clean a Bb Clarinet

How to Clean a Bass Clarinet

Basic and Advanced Clarinet Warmups

Bassoon

How to Clean a Bassoon

Bassoon Warmups

Saxophone

How to Clean a Saxophone

Alto Sax Warmups

Tenor Sax Warmups

Bari Sax Warmups

Brass 🎺

(Clear your spit valve regularly. Extra spit sloshing around in there will degrade your instrument over time. Besides, we can hear you gurgling and it’s not pleasant. Here’s how to clean an icky-sounding brass instrument.)

(French) Horn

Basic Horn Care: Horns need special attention because of their rotary valves. It’s important that they’re properly maintained.

A List of Horn Warmups

Trumpet

How to Clean a Trumpet

Trumpet Warmups

Trombone

How to Care for Bass and Tenor (regular) Trombones

How to Oil/Grease Your Slide

Low Brass Warmups & Maintenance

Baritone/Euphonium

Baritone & Euphonium Daily & Monthly Cleaning

Low Brass Warmups & Maintenance

Tuba

Cleaning a Tuba: If you have a rotary valve tuba, stop right there. Cleaning a rotary valve tuba the wrong way can damage it. Please see Basic Horn Care for how to maintain rotary valves. If you have a regular ol’ piston-valve tuba, see How to Clean a Trumpet.

Not sure what kind of tuba you have? Check here.

Low Brass Warmups & Maintenance

Strings 🎻

(If you’re having problems with your violin/viola/cello/bass, talk to your teacher or a luthier. Stringed instruments are delicate and can be damaged easily.)

For All Stringed Instruments:

Here’s all about rosin.

Instrument storage

Warming up

Got bridge problems?

Violin/Viola

No violin tips list would be complete without a link to TwoSet. Violas proceed at your own risk.

Violin & Viola Basic Maintenance

Violin Tuning: If you are a beginner, it’s usually not a good idea to tune using the pegs.

Viola Tuning: Again, beginners should not use pegs to tune.

A comparison of clefs

Cello

Cello Maintenance

How to Sit

Double Bass

How to take care of your monster of an instrument

Tips for Double Bass

Percussion 🥁

For All Percussion

Percussion Tips

Timpani

Weird Timpani Facts

Tuning Tips

Choir 🎤

Choral Singing Tips

Learning to Sight Read

Basic Music Theory

How to Sing in a Group