#armenian mum things

[thedreadvampy]

I'm genuinely struggling so fucking much with what's happening in the world and I know that's pathetic cause it's not even directly affecting me but it's true.

like this isn't the first genocide in the world in my lifetime, obviously. but there's very little clear information or context available to me about China or Darfur, and I was so little (1-2 years old) when Rwanda and Bosnia happened that I don't know what it was to witness that.

and I have known about the ethnic cleansing of Palestine since forever. my grandfather was working in Jerusalem during the Nakba and my mum grew up with a rotating cast of Palestinian refugees in her house. it's been a campaign of genocidal intent for decades. but the massacre happening now is undeniable in a way it maybe hasn't been since 1948.

and I don't fucking know how to cope with it. like last month, different genocidal act, different country, in Nagorno-Karabakh. that's fucking horrific and seems to have passed under the radar for a lot of people. but at least in passing under the radar the British media wasn't populated with people praising Azerbaijan for its ~brave actions~ in ethnic cleansing.

this is not to suggest one is worse than the other and part of the horror is the stacking back to back of genocide against the Armenians and genocide against the Palestinians.

but fuck me it's grim to watch what is undeniably a genocidal massacre - Gaza has been without water or power for a week while they're being bombed, Israel gave 1.1 million people a DAY to evacuate half the region and then bombed the refugee caravans, they're bombing hospitals, there's allegations of white phosphorus use, 2,000+ people have been killed so far this week in Gaza including over 600 children - and turn around and see the entire political and media establishment in the UK equivocating and calling it "self-defence" and calling for the arrest of people protesting against this massacre.

like that Even Now as Israeli forces explicitly aim to bomb literally half of Gaza into the ground while 2 million people are trapped in Gaza, people will act like this is proportional self defence and not vengeful genocide.

Even with Hamas' attacks having the highest Israeli death toll since the Yom Kippur War 50 years ago, Israel has already killed almost half as many Palestinians again - 1,300 Israeli deaths leading to 1,900 and counting Palestinians, and that's rising constantly and hard to track as Gaza continues to be bombarded, cut off from communications, and press and UN officials keep. you know. dying.

How the fuck do you justify this as self defence or proportional response or anything other than a massacre? Hamas killed 1,300 people in a day and we can all agree that that is a horrific tragedy. But somehow Israel killing 1.5x as many people and displacing over 420,000 people while shelling them in a densely populated strip of land they cannot leave is acceptable?

at this stage you don't even have to consider the history of the situation (like that in the last 15 years, 5,367 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces and sellers in Gaza alone, while in the same time period 307 Israelis were killed by Palestinians in the whole of Israel. Or that the last time Israel and Palestine entered all-out war which Israel framed as retaliatory violence, Israel killed 30 times as many people as were killed by Hamas) to see the imbalance. like you should consider the context. But literally even if this came out of nowhere and if every terrible thing Israel says about Palestinians was true, this would not be proportional.

it's so fucked it's so fucked it's so fucked and I cannot bear how many people feel the need to both-sides this.

#red said

[the-hoziest-archive]

the way i try to talk to people about capitalism and feeling like i have no right to actually. talk about work bc im barely able to work like in terms of employment i am definitely Not Doing Well At All i guess i dont thrive only under Pressure to Perform and not be Fired bc i can't even get thru a probation period!!!!!! which like. isn't even my fault. maybe if they don't want me to do a bad job they should give me a job made for robots!!!!!!! i am not a fucking robot!!!!!! i thrive under I Like Bringing People Foods and Apologising For Things That Are Not My Fault (literally though like it just isn't fam) like if they're nice I'm genuinely apologetic if they're a dick i am a pro at diplomacy. it's fun!!!! and really. im going up to people like HI IT'S MY FIRST DAY and then they're like no oh god im so sorry oh no oh god (for legal purposes this is a joke)

but ok what's a girl to do i am once again asking for your financial aid. anyway i don't even care that whatever happened happened because it's all good. it's all good. first im going after the dwp then nhs england. like i love this version of mine. i don't think that sometimes it's PAINFUL to deal with people that are either stupid or really bad at acting dumb????? very looks into the camera like im on the office vibes.

but fuck i am so much happier. and again. i have the privilege of *check notes* armenian parents. who have the privilege of *check notes* immigrating due to poverty and post war chaos. like, babygirl we have all paid the price of that privilege but ok. i do. one phone call and next day ticket home. mom im tired etc.

so i don't know how to tell my friends “im telling you as a person who cares about you what i learned the hard way multiple times, anything that costs you your peace is too expensive.” literally looking at it for 4 years now. and i do forget but. i can't help but look at myself as a person living on benefits in the same way everyone else is looking at me. like those who are Judging and the rest who know how awful the system is. i keep saying i am motivated by spite and the carefree stubborn spirit of a 2 year old. i feel like even every time i say anything that is about the way i hate Work like. no i love working! i hate Work! sunday was a 4 hour serotonin high and im addicted to that shit. i just. my desire to help vs my hatred of unsolicited advice. idk my mum told me one thing some years ago and she was right.

#emma.txt #enjoy my communist comedy special

[alexsfictionaddiction]

Review: Sorry, Bro by Taleen Voskuni

I really don’t think that I read enough sapphic books, so I was really excited to see what this one had in store for me. I ended up getting some really great insights that I wasn’t particularly expecting, so I’m so glad I picked it up!

When Nar’s boyfriend proposes, she realises that perhaps things might be over between them. That’s when her Armenian mother unveils a spreadsheet of details of every local, eligible Armenian bachelor that she wants her daughter to meet. Nar agrees to attend Explore Armenia, a series of events that celebrates Armenian culture, and connect with other people of her culture. That’s where she meets the beautiful, kind Erebuni, who introduces Nar to the wonders of Armenian identity and shares her love of witchiness. Suddenly, Explore Armenia is much more fun but Nar isn’t out as bisexual, so how can she navigate her growing crush on Erebuni and please her family?

Nar’s ex-boyfriend Trevor made me cringe and he didn’t even get that much page time. I’m glad that she took the time to eventually break things off with him in a nice way but I’m not sure I’d have left him hanging as long as she did. It was really obvious that she didn’t want to marry him, so I found myself wondering why she didn’t just say so immediately. 

I adored the amount of Armenian culture that was packed into this book. It’s really not a heritage that I know much about and in fact, I think this is the first book I’ve read that features it so prominently. It was a real educational experience for me and I enjoyed the combination of history, food and family dynamics that I was introduced to.

I also really enjoyed the slow-burn but inevitable romance between Nar and Erebuni. I thought they were really well matched and I found myself pushing them to get together. One of my favourite kinds of sapphic relationships to read is when characters begin with a bit of awkwardness and then they start to pick up information that indicates that a deeper connection might be possible. It’s that gradual realisation that what they really want could be a reality that I just love and that’s exactly what happened in this book.

Of course, as a traditional Armenian mum, Nar’s mother doesn’t even consider that her daughter might not be interested in men. The idea that she is queer simply isn’t possible. This struggle haunts Nar throughout the book because she doesn’t want to keep such a huge part of herself from those closest to her but of course, like most closeted people, she’s terrified of mass rejection. I really loved how this was eventually resolved because I really wasn’t sure how her mother would take Nar’s coming out. It was a really lovely moment though!

Sorry, Bro is quite a strange title. It’s a phrase that some of Nar’s male friends say a few times and I’m guessing that it refers to Nar’s rejection of Trevor or possibly her choosing Erebuni over all the single men. I’m not sure it really suits the book though. However, it is an insightful read into Armenian identity and culture. It’s also a celebration of bisexuality and living your truth with a cute romance to boot.

#sorry bro #taleen voskuni #romance #contemporary fiction #lgbtq #book review #review #books #bookworm

[xiyade]

armenian mums really spend their entire lives telling their daughters how lonely and devoid of love their marriage is and then in the same breath pressure the said daughters to get married asap

#is this too specific?? #how can she possibly not realize why i hate the idea of marriage so much #leave me alone woman #armenian mum things

[lizzybeth1986]

Eleanor's Kitchen

Book: The Royal Heir, Book 1.

Series Masterlist: Eleanor's Kitchen

Pairing: None. Mother-son bonding between Prince Liam and his mother Eleanor.

Rating: G

Summary: After a visit to a monastery in the Venetian lagoon, 6-year-old Liam finds that his mother has become temporarily obsessed with rose petals.

Word Count: 2,026 words

Tagging @choicesficwriterscreations

Chapter 1: Vartanush

(pic from here)

It all began two months ago, on a diplomatic trip they took to an island in Venice. Mum was visiting a monastery there, hoping to "introduce initiatives that will benefit several Armenian communities, both in Cordonia and around the world". Liam didn't understand all of that, but what he did understand was that the monks at San Lazarro degli Armeni loved their roses.

REALLY loved their roses.

So much, that they had them for breakfast.

All their breakfasts (according to Mum).

That morning, Liam enjoyed his bread and rose petal jam (it was red like strawberry jam, but with soft little bits that melted in your tongue and smelled like Mum's perfume), but he could already see Mum staring at her plate like it grew three heads. She swirled the jam - a lone portion on her plate with no bread in sight - around slowly in her mouth, almost reluctant to swallow as if she'd miss out on some special secret if she ate it too soon.

Later, Liam played with a wooden toy Mum had bought him from another island in Venice, eavesdropping from a small distance as his mother whispered rapidly in lowered tones to a very patient monk. The only word he could make out was vartanush.

Mum hasn't been the same since then. Every morning walk around the garden area now involves detours to where her roses are growing. She alone has taken it upon herself to taste a variety each of every rose-related food known to man - rose syrup, rose tea, even quail in rose petal sauce.

An old, dog-eared, discoloured book that Liam can't resist leaning over for an occasional whiff (it smells so strongly of vanilla), titled Rose Recipes from Olden Times, takes up almost-permanant residence at Mum's bedtime table (he noticed, because he's been having nightmares about Leo and Father eating him, a little more often than usual, and everytime he has a nightmare he bolts to his mother's room. Father scoffs everytime he sees Liam's head burrowed in fear against her right hip, but everytime he does Mum wraps her arms around him a little tighter. She's convinced Father's ire has more to do with Liam's tendancy to kick you in the shins in his sleep).

Her eyes now grow wider at the mere mention of rose petal anything, and her hands - which almost always whip around her face when she's excited about things - move almost as fast as windmills.

Leo tells him this madness may wear off in two weeks, but it's been two months now and she's still going on! And Liam can't for the life of him understand why.

The confusion must be obvious on his face, because in the middle of spouting a rose-related fact she will look at him, look equally puzzled, and change the subject.

Then one day, early in the morning, she takes him with her to their rose garden, a small basket loaned from one of the kitchen staff in tow.

"Why are we going to the garden now, Mum?" Liam asks her, holding tight to his basket.

"Because it's mid-morning!" she says, a skip in her step and a bounciness in her tone. Her eyes are sparkling a little brighter today. "Always the best time to pick roses. Just when the morning dew has dried but it's not too hot yet."

Mum makes quick work of several flowers, dropping each one delicately into the basket Liam is holding, filling it way before time. Liam still isn't sure why they need to do this so urgently, with flowers from their own garden, but when he asks why they couldn't just order blossoms from one of the many florists in the area Mum looks scandalized.

"Never!" She whispers in horror, "Who knows what kind of chemicals those Fydelian gardeners cram into those poor dears. I wouldn't feed that to an insect. Blasphemous!"

Liam hides his giggle behind his free hand. It isn't every day that he gets to hear his good-natured, cheerful, sunny-faced mother look more like Grandmother (or Queen Mother Cassandra, as the court calls her), who could eviscerate you with just a look and who looked at courtiers like they emitted a rotten smell if they even held a hand the wrong way. That expression sits rather oddly on Mum, because she loves making everyone feel welcome, but that's why seeing that look on her face is so funny.

Liam follows Mum to where the cooks must be, realizing only when they've passed the main kitchen that she's taking him to an part of the palace he's never seen before. It's a small, warm, private place, meant for just one or two people, intimate and smelling of fresh thyme and orange zest. He decides he already prefers this tiny kitchen to the huge palace one.

She shows him how to remove the petals from the core, mindful of the white base that Mum says will make a dish bitter. Together, they pour caster sugar over the delicate pink petals. Mum pours the entire weight of her arms into massaging the sugar into the petals until the two combine, and encourages Liam to dirty his clothes a bit to do the same. Liam is sugar-crusted and laughing with his mouth closed once they're done.

"The recipe I sourced from the monastery said massage the roses with sugar and lemons," she says, playfully flicking a little extra sugar on Liam's nose. "But I think I'll add the lemons later."

Liam's laughter comes in gurgles from his excitement, and it's only his fear that the gap made from his missing tooth will be seen that stops him from laughing out loud. Mum really does have the most sunshiny smile. "Why!"

Her smile now grows a little smaller, a tiny bit more secretive. "You'll see."

When the petals are ready, they fill a copper pot with water and wait for the bubbles. Mum adds the roses, and instantly Liam's heart sinks when he sees the colour drain away from the flowers. Mum, however, doesn't seem to mind.

"Did we do something wrong, Ma?"

She taps her left foot lightly, counting seconds till the water reaches a boil. "No, not at all."

Liam frowns, disappointed. "But it isn't supposed to look like that."

Mum looks at him, her eyes twinkling. "You forget, sweetheart, we haven't added our lemons yet."

He looks a little doubtful. "What will that do?"

She smiles enigmatically, and says nothing.

The greyish-pink-tinted water comes to a boil, and Mum has her sliced lemons at the ready. She winks at Liam as she squeezes, daring him to look.

The liquid transforms instantly, an intense ruby hue blossoming from the middle of the pot before it spreads to the water at the edges of the pot, going from an a creamy-white mass to a rosy concoction. Almost like the petals turned pale in the heat, before bursting into vibrant colour with the lemons. Liam's own eyes widen in wonder, his hands gripping at the edge of the counter as Eleanor stifles a little smile.

"Wooooooow," he whispers.

This is better than cooking or baking or anything, Liam thinks, this has to be magic!

He listens rapt and still wide-eyed now, hanging on to his mother's every word and noting how the petals get smaller, the liquid thicker, the colour brighter, until Mum switches off the heat, takes a bowl and drops a spoonful of the ruby liquid in it, blowing on it so it will cool.

"Come, darling, run your finger through that."

Liam stares warily at her, worried that it might be too hot. She blinks her eyes slowly, in reassurance. And that's good enough for him; if his mother is wizard enough to change the colour of a liquid turned pale, then there's nothing she can't do!

He runs his finger through the cooled jam, smiling with satisfaction when it wrinkles, just as Mum had once told him jam would.

No wonder, he thinks as they both have a taste. It's thick and treacly in his mouth, a stray petal in the sauce bursting with flavour like softened sweet fruit. The perfume from the petals fills every corner of his palate, until he feels like his entire body smells of roses. No wonder Mum thinks about roses all the time.

Its flavour is no different from the jam he had at the monastery, really, but it wasn't as if he saw the monastery's jam blush bright red from the juice of a lemon back then! It didn't look like magic back then!

At the dining table Mum insists on having the jam alongside homemade bread and goat cheese, deeming it too sweet to have on its own, but Liam is past caring. He gobbles the jam from a bowl by the spoonful, revelling in its thickened juiciness, biting on the syrupy, soft petals that seem to explode with sweetness in his mouth. Before long, his mouth is sticky and smeared in shades of fushcia, but he is too delighted to do anything but eat and give a full-bellied laugh as Mum, amused, points at her mouth to let him know of the mess on his.

--

Eleanor stands behind a chair in the dining room, sighing fondly as her son demolishes the jam in his bowl. His mouth is smeared with the stuff, and her heart almost bursts with joy when he laughs his heart out - for the first time since his first baby tooth was pulled out, leaving a gap that embarrassed him and made him smile less.

That's the kind of food I want to introduce my children to, she says, remembering with regret that kitchen escapades like these bore her elder son, Leo, to tears. The kind that will open them up, make them laugh, give them good memories. Memories that will get them through all kinds of sadness.

Eleanor is already thinking of how she'll do this recipe the next time. She's fine adding the lemon later rather than with the sugar, yes. It's worth it just for seeing that wonderstruck look on Liam's face again. But she'll add a few things, make it even more special. Maybe some lemon zest for Leo, maybe the tiniest hint of vanilla for Liam. All nestled in the jam like a little surprise.

Watching her little boy laugh, his eyes shining, his other baby teeth stained with fresh jam with a huge gap between them, makes her want to preserve this moment. Must not forget to bring a camera next time we do this, she thinks.

It will be one of her biggest treasures. Her baby boy - growing too soon, leaving his babyhood too far behind (she thinks with a pang) - laughing with his whole heart, his cheeks rosy and his mouth ruby-red with jam. Already he's beginning to learn etiquette. Already he's begun eating his Earl-Grey-and-Lavender teacakes with the delicacy of a future Lord....

Eleanor shakes herself. Liam won't stay her baby forever, she knows that. But these are moments she can capture and keep with her, waiting till he's her age and having children of his own, so she can one day whip out a picture of a free-spirited little six-year-old, his infant teeth making way for new ones, his laughter gurgling like waterfalls. Her baby Liam, who will only exist in memories like these, if she doesn't find a way to preserve them.

She'll bring her camera when this batch of jam is over, she decides. She'll take many pictures this time: one of them cooking, one of them massaging petals, one of Liam getting jam all over his face. She'll ask Jackson to help get them developed and framed later.

And then when they're both much older, him with all his teeth intact and hers probably beginning to fall out - they will sit over these pictures and share a good, hearty, full-bellied laugh together.

She grins as Liam finishes off the jam on his bowl. Already I can't wait to take those pictures, sweetheart, she thinks, sighing happily, let's finish this batch soon. I just can't wait.

--

A/N: Liam is a 6 and a half in this story. The Armenian monastery (known as "Armenian Monastery Mechitarist") mentioned in this fic actually exists and is quite well-known, and the monks do have breakfast with bread and rose petal jam there (the petals come from their own garden). I read somewhere that "Vartanush" comes from the Armenian words for rose (vart) and sweet (anush).

Recipe for Rose Petal Jam

#kingliamappreciationweek #KLAW #KLAW Day 6 #king liam #prince liam #eleanor rys #the royal romance #the royal heir #the royal finale #theme: liam's childhood #content: fanfic #series: eleanor's kitchen

[bitletsanddrabbles]

New Years Resolution: Spend Less Time On This Hell Site

I'm not going away all together.

I couldn't if I wanted to.

I'm not kidding when I say this place is an addiction.

There are so many really great people, with great ideas, people I have no access to anywhere else, really. Ao3 comments, I suppose, but they don't really have a way to ask questions or brainstorm ideas. Admittedly, I've gotten rather picky about who I follow back (mostly because we all tend to reblog from the same sources and I really only need a picture on my dashboard five times at once), but there are people I count as mutuals even if all we do is chat in comments or the occasional ask or IM. I've learned an amazing amount from you all, things that have helped me in ways you really wouldn't have thought, including getting through the day at my job. If someone could explain why no one on the planet, regardless of where they come from, seems to understand the purpose of a trash can, my life would pretty much be complete. There are people on this site who I can pretty firmly say are the reason I survived 2020 with anything resembling sanity. Or, you know, possibly the reason I survived it at all.

On the other hand, I used to do more. Part of that is the pandemic. Local businesses have shortened their hours, so no matter if it's a work day or a day off, I can't arrange my time the way I used to. Still, it's been at least two years since I finished a scarf for the charity Mum and I knit for. My house, never 'neat' is getting to the point even I can't stand it. I want to get far enough in Duolingo's Spanish course that I'll be on par with a five year old Hispanic kid by the time I reach 90. I want to learn to cook and sew so when the glue holding the fifty near independent small countries we call 'states' together finally disintegrates I can survive the resulting economic crash (assuming of course my state isn't immediately absorbed into Canada. I'd be okay with that one too). On the off chance we somehow dodge economic ruin* I'd like to at least be able to make my clothes fit properly some day, and lord knows they'll never do that off the rack.

And there again, there are the wonderful, delightful people I follow who I wouldn't trade for the world, but who are very fond of talking about politics and not so fond of using a #politics tag so I can filter those posts out before I've read enough to figure out I shouldn't be reading them. This means that it's not infrequent for me to come home after eight hours of dealing with thousands of people from every geometrically improbably corner of the globe, picking up the trash they leave in the carts of dropped on the ground, the ice cream they leave on shelves to go to waste, etc., hop on tumblr in hopes of relaxing and find posts casting broad aspersions on my country, what passes for my culture, my skin colour, and the sex/sexuality/gender identity of half of my family and countless of my coworkers. The things that are supposed to support my 'acceptable status' are inevitably things I don't agree with and find hypocritical at best, borderline fascist at worst. I get frequent reminders that I have the worst education anywhere, but that my ignorance is inexcusable because I could easily fix it if I just shelled out the money to get a PhD in everything, or at least moved into a library and read the entire catalog. That the reason I'm continually hacking through language barriers at work is because I've not bothered using Duolingo to gain fluency in every language on earth, including Chamorro and Armenian. And the reason my country, and in fact the whole world, is still having problems is because people like me just don't care enough to figure out how to solve anything.

In short, I spend entirely too much time thinking of the occasion when my father told me that we're hurting people just by living in the country we live in and being the colour we are, and that all we can do is pray the people we're hurting can forgive us. Funny thing, I'm just as convinced now as I was then that if my existence is a problem the contents of my medicine cabinet will solve things a lot better than praying my unseen victims will forgive me for being born. Maybe even more so.

And I've promised Mum I'd not leave her to take care of my cat if I can help it.

So, in 2022, I am giving myself an hour a day, maximum, to be on this hell site. Preferably less. I will spend the rest of the time reading the million books I've gotten for Christmastide, cooking, knitting, cleaning, writing, researching, petting my cat, and anything else I can come up with that is...well. Not this.

Hopefully my mental health will improve, but the way things are going, we'll get a fourth Covid variant and the anti-maskers will storm the state capitol and force the governor to lift all regulations, so we won't even be allowed to hand out masks at the door anymore, forget being cross when people refuse to wear them because mandate? What mandate?

Still, all I can do is try, right?

* given that when one of our local billionaires proposed an income tax for the top 5%  (himself and, like, three other people) the voters turned it down, I've not much hope there.

#new years resolution

[illdesigns]

Hi there! I was just curious if you had more information about your OCs for Metalocalypse? I’d love to hear more about them

sure, why not! word of warning is that like...all of these are related to magnus, because of course they are, because of course i would. such is the burden of being me. also this is so fucking long and is word vomit please be nice to me.

my most like, barebones ocs are probably gonna be most of magnus’ family - mainly his parents and two of his three sisters. the third one is a bit more developed but we’ll get to her in a second. i talked about his parents more in depth in another post. but the tl;dr version is that sahak (dad) and margarit (mom) were born and raised in the armenian diaspora in iraq and moved to the states as a fairly young newlywed couple. they settled in the armenian community in nyc first, probably in the late ‘50s, but sahak’s job had them move around a few states. 1962, magnus is born, they end up moving a bit more until they settle in texas and sahak switched jobs. in pretty quick succession after that they had two of his younger sisters, sarah and miriam, and magnus’ baby sister heather came around when magnus was about ten.

in ‘74 margarit passed away due to health problems, and in ‘81 magnus ended up estranged from his father and sisters. a few years later one of his sisters got in touch and said that their dad was sick, come home, make amends, etc and magnus was like “no <3” and so he moves in the world under the impression his dad is dead. he has no real idea if he is or not. he says he doesn’t care, but he does, and he misses his sisters terribly but has no idea how to get in touch with them and thinks they would still want nothing to do with him. and in the late ‘90s heather has her son david who is kinda magnus...2! in a lot of ways. takes after grandma margarit looks wise, who magnus also takes after, etc. david would be 15ish around doomstar, and all of my “mag lives post dsr” aus always involve him reconnecting with his sisters + finding out about his new family members (sarah and miriam definitely also have kids but in those aus david is magnus’ lil guy, because heather was kind of “magnus’ baby” in the family). david plays guitar and is a big dethklok fan, not knowing he’s related to “that guy who used to be in the band like before their first record.” toki is his favorite member.

then there’s some longfic plot relevant exes - skye, cordelia, and julian. skye’s already shown up in relax your mind for a brief second, and julian and cordelia will be mentioned (and possibly appear? :p) in later chapters, so i’ll stay mum about them. but skye is my little darling out of the three - tradgoth afro-brazilian guitarist who will take no shit from nobody. mag and skye quickly bonded over some common things (guitarists, second generation immigrants, people of color in alternative scenes, etc) and dated in the late ‘80s for a good few years. their breakup was amicable (ish, magnus took a hot second/a rebound or two to get over her) and she’s still around in preklok times as one of his closer friends. and during the show timeline i like to imagine she’s pretty successful in her own band. no idea what they would sound like but she’s out there...doin’ stuff. pickles definitely remembers her the most because skye had some connections to a band that opened for snakes ‘n’ barrels - so in my canon she’s how magnus and pickles met, because they all used to hang out.

and last but not least i get to prattle on about my fankids with @metalitaph hoohoo. we have a like “what if literally nothing bad happens, ever” kind of au where we gently handwave canon, magnus stabbing nathan, etc and just sort of play house with magnus and charles. and in that au they end up with baaaabies because why not it’s cute. in said au the big turning point is magnus reuniting with his sisters in the late ‘90s and he sees little baby david and is like “oh my god i’m cured i’ll never be an asshole again.” well, not exactly, but he’s definitely more inclined to go to therapy when he has a huge support net and a baby to cuddle. they kinda just steal david for long periods of time but single mom heather’s like “by all means-“ and then it turns into heather being a cool sister and being a surrogate for her bro. and then that’s where casper and claudia come from :) casper’s a lil shy nerd who likes to draw and stay to himself and claudia’s an off the walls Weird Girl who larps as a wolf and bites people. guess who takes after which parent the most

#long post #oc: casper #oc: david #oc: claudia #those are the ones wih like Tags

[mrscolesprouse]

positive little questions ✨

tagged by the beautiful @stonerbughead

3 songs youre listening to a lot recently (or really enjoy)?

Midnight Sky by Miley Cyrus—it’s her new song and it’s a bop

Anything by Mac Ayres—Easy, Calvin’s Joint, Change Ya Mind

Feels Like We’re Only Going Backwards by Tame Impala—cause cmon, it’s tame impala

What’s your comfort food?

It’s this dish my grandma used to make and my mum makes it now...it’s an Armenian thing...It’s like meat and beans with rice. Just a real warm home cooked meal.

First animal that popped into your head just now?

Seahorse 🌊🐎 (they don’t have a seahorse emoji)

Favorite time to wake up?

What is sleep? We don’t know her...

tagging my favs @literatiruinedme @edamamechips @sprousehart-x

#gabi does things

[mountain-man-cumeth]

why is he saami?

aight ppl story time, gather around

first time i heard of sami ppl was when i was like 5 and my mum was collecting these natgeos and there was an issue about them. i, to this day, hate cerulean blue with passion and at that time when i saw the pics i hated it. BUT it left an impression on my baby brain, u kno? 

10 years pass and we are putting her collection away and im struck by this need to find that issue again bcs i remember it so vividly. i go through 100 zines and nothING? IM 15, adolescent and about to lose my marbles. 

fast forward a couple of years and im moving out so im picking which books to take and tHIS FKIN PHOTOGRAPHY BOOK ABOUT FAMILIES FROM AROUND THE WORLD HITS ME LIKE A CERULEAN BLUE AVALANCHE. it wasnt natgeo after all. im now a grown woman who can read so i read and at this point i should mention that ive grown an interest in languages so i look up resources to learn any sami, i find none. so its the 15 y/o searching for that cerulean blue nightmare all over again. i finally find some in a subreddit but its mostly from swedish, norvegian or finnish. i move on, begrudgingly. 

2019 eurovision comes and i hear the spirit in the sky...

now we have this thing i think called “elegizing” in english(idk if that translation is correct but its similar to joik) so i was immediately intrigued by the bald dudes bit in “spirit in the sky” and lo and beHOLD IT IS ALSO A SAMI THING?? THEYVE BEEN THE BANE OF MY EXISTENCE SINCE I WAS 5

i relapse, again, i spend like 10 eurs voting between them and the icelandic latex overlords.

bcs. now i dont claim to know anything about scandinavian politics but i sure as hell would spend 100 eurs if turkey put out a song that had kurdish or armenian bits in it

and that is why kara is sami.

#karayan #personal #sami #i know this is alot more answer than u expected #probably #Anonymous

[borisbubbles]

16. SERBIA

Balkanika - “Nova Deca” 19th place

Out of all the positive morphs I experienced this year, Serbia was the one that I suspected the least. I never hated them the way others did, but eh, I didn’t think highly of them either. Especially when the backstage clips showed them enterting the stage dressed up like members of some inauspicious fertility cult. “Oh.” I thought. “Another Genealogy. Except it won’t make the final. Whatever, NEXT”

How wrong I was though, because it did qualify and caused me to re-evaluate all I knew about life and come to the fucking conclusion that... this is really fucking good??? HOW is an exaggerated mess that has accurately been described as “Balkan Megamix Volume 3″ this great? 

I actually don’t have a clear answer for this as i’m writing this down (we haven’t reached the songs I would spam the replay button on yet), but the core of it is that Balkanika tried REALLY hard to condense 900+ years worth of Balkanic musical tradition in a mere three minutes and fucking pulled it off by... striking battle poses like some Ethno-Power Rangers

GO GO BALKAN RANGERS!!!

The choreography as a whole is just so extra and beautifully overacted. The entire way through, the members of Balkanika strike poses as if in Madonna’s “Vogue”, guided on by the beguiling tunes conjured by Ljubomir’s magic whistle-wand [ed.: here’s the best gif i could make of Old Rasflutin’s background flailing, but it’s way funnier if you pay attention to his presence as you watch “Nova Deca” unfold, so SCROLL UP AND REWATCH RIGHT NAO!!!]:   

Such a beautiful presence we’re not worthy of, y’all. All while the rest of Balkanika are either serving some epic 90 Percussion realness:

or chanelling some Project: Waters of Life sillyness

This could have so easily turned into a San Marinese goopy mess (which I don’t think too highly of, as you know), and briefly it looked like this would be the case; Instead, we found something better.

The plain answer however, lies in that Balkanika didn’t try to be funny and that makes a massive difference. Every piece of overacting, from Mladen’s creepy stares to Ra-Ra-Rasflutin (Serbia’s greatest love machine) prodding the action on from the background, is the product of intense belief and dedication, which... makes it hysterical, but in an endearing sort of way. Balkanika really just can’t help themselves. <3 

However, as I have to take things into account other than just act, I can’t really drag Balkanika much higher than this. Their song, while cool in concept, is kinda a bit too overloaded with quirks, which are largely lost to me because you know, show-stopping staging. (lol I just realized this is such a reverse “O jardim”, how neat they will now be forever ranked next to one another in this ranking). “Nova Deca” also suffers from the fact that I already had a large slew of other faves before I started to love them. As a whole, I think they have the least to offer of those left in the ranking. Oh well, at least we’ll forever have this: 

<3

RANKING SO FAR:

16. Serbia (Balkanika - “Nova Deca”)

17. Portugal (Cláudia Pascoal - “O jardim”)

18. The Netherlands (Waylon - “Outlaw in ‘em”)

19. Ukraine (MÉLOVIN - “Under the ladder”)

20. Macedonia (Eye Cue - “Lost and Found”)

21. San Marino (Jessika ft. Jenifer Brening - “Who We Are”)

22. Sweden (Benjamin Ingrosso - “Dance You Off”)

23. Austria (Cesár Sampson - “Nobody but you”)

24. Latvia (Laura Rizzotto - “Funny girl”)

25. Azerbaijan (AISEL - “X my heart”)

26. Israel (Netta - “Toy”)

27. Norway (Alexander Rybak  - “That’s how you write a song”)

28. Montenegro (Vanja Radovanovic - “Inje”)

29. Armenia (Sevak Khanagyan - “Qami”)

30. Poland (Gromee ft. Lukas Meijer - “Light me up”)

31. Greece (Yianna Terzi - “Oniro mou”)

32. Georgia (Iriao - “For you”)

33. Belgium (Sennek - “A matter of time”)

34. Italy (Ermal Meta & Fabrizio Moro - “Non mi avete fatto niente)

35. Romania (The Humans - “Goodbye”)

36. Ireland (Ryan O'Shaughnessy - “Together”)

37. Croatia (Franka - “Crazy”)

38. Belarus (ALEKSEEV - “Forever”)

39. Russia (Julia Samoylova - “I Won’t Break”)

40. Spain (Amaia & Alfred - “Tu canción”)

41. Iceland (Ari Ólafsson - “Our choice”)

42. Australia (Jessica Mauboy - “We Got Love”)

43. Czech Republic (Mikolas Josef - “Lie to me”)

FOOTNOTES (optional)

1) I decided not to credit Sanja Ilic simply because he wasn’t on the stage and I feel it’s kinda unfair to credit him just based on his merit as a composer, while Isaura composed AND performed second fiddle to Cláudia, without a letter of on-screen credit. 

2) Re: Intentional vs Unintentional humour: The reason why intentional humour rarely works for me is that it comes with the built-in pressure to laugh, which... makes me less inclined to find something funny because it kinda takes away the choice element of it. Like, I think I have a fairly okay sense of humour, I can decide for myself what I find funny, you know? This is why intentional humour rarely works for me, while unintentional humour nearly always does. For reference, dial back to where I ranked Israel and Norway and Czechia and San Marino (or “Yodel it” and “Space” from last year), all acts that piggybacked on scripted humour

3) DoReDos are one of the few instances this year where intentional humour totally worked for me, although I also realize they’ve largely been hit-or-miss. But we won’t be discussing that soon.

4) Me being a history nerd, I also think the idea of “weaving a song out of literally every Serbian musical quirk ever” is a really cool song concept. It really comes close to an earnest, Balkanic version of “Swedish Smörgåsbord”  <3 5) “Nova Deca” is a way more accurate representation of what actual balkan music sounds like (as opposed to the tiresome, tedious, boring Balkan Ballad). The Folk music channels in Bulgaria, for instance play “Nova Deca”-esque songs all day.   6) A funny argument between my mom and I occured during this song. My mom, who is Bulgarian, argued that Balkanika plagiarized their song from Bulgarian Polyphonic Singing. When I pointed out the song was based on the Byzantine musical traditions, she claimed that the Byzantines stole them from the Bulgarians, which is historically implausible (see note 8). This is one of many reasons I think little of ethnocentrism and nationalism, especially from the Slavs and Greeks. Everyone accuses one another of cultural appropriation (see again: Macedoniagate), when in fact, their geographical proximity exposed them to similar cultural ideas and their geopolitics (warmongering) turned it into a mutually unintelligible wash. 

7) Besides, the entire point of the Balkans is that they support each other due to their cultural similarities in spite of wishing horrific, painful deaths on one another.  <3

8) HISTORY LESSONS WITH BORIS #1: Polyphonic Singing.  Polyphonic singing evolved as a Byzantine response to Roman Catholic liturgical chanting (instituted by Charlemagne, who as Holy Roman Emperor, took measures in making the religion more accessible to the common folk. How do we make the Bible popular? By teaching rich people how to read! What a genius. <3 ). Thus, polyphony spread as Byzantine Christianity spread, which would later become Eastern Orthodoxy after the East-West Schism in the 11th century AD. (hence why polyphony is such a big cultural benchmark all Eastern Orthodox nations, including Russia and Georgia, but not Armenia until their annexation by the Russian Empire in the 19th Century AD (since Armenian Christianity is a cadet branch of Oriental Orthodoxy, which split from Catholicism in the 4th century AD).  Anyway, Bulgaria historically played a massive role in spreading Christianity and its liturgical chanting to their pagan Balkan neighbours, after the Bulgarian Knyaz (a fancy way of saying “Khan”) Boris I converted under the pressure of Byzantine Emperor Michael III. Boris (whom, as you might have guessed, I was named after) used Christianity to pacify the squabbling lords of his realm (which included both pagans and Catholics) and oversaw the creation of the Glagolitic (liturgical) and Cyrrilic scripts to speed up the spread, paving the way for Bulgaria’s Golden Age under his son Simeon. During that Golden Age, btw, much of what is now Serbia came under Bulgarian control, including Belgrade.  So while the Serbs probably did learn polyphony from the Bulgarians, the Bulgarians absolutely, totally, learned it from the Byzantines, who invented the damn’ thing, in their own spin on Charlemagne’s popular church choirs. Mum, you’re WRONG. O:-)

#Eurovision #Eurovision Song Contest #Eurovision 2018 #Serbia #Balkanika #Sanja Ilic #Nova Deca

[the-hoziest-archive]

came home and im exhausted sure did a lot of energy spending things today but I called my mum to check in bc i sent her a long vn earlier talking about serious shit and like,,, got myself all amped up talking about literally everything and cried a lot but like, cathartic. i never thought I'd get to a point in my life where she'd understand me to this extent. she even starts getting it when i talk about why i don't like my given name. and she started telling me that since im doing so well and like idk, recovering from past hurts ig? one day i might be ok with that name and i explained that it's the word like the sound and how words stay with me. insane. armenian people do not change their names or adopt foreign-sounding nicknames without ridicule. like. she has way more emotional intelligence than i realised we just never got to actually talk like this. im floored. im so so grateful. im gonna cry again.

#emma.txt #having to constantly reassure her like MOM IM FINE bc we don't emote in this household™ #and i actually explained that i feel like the odd one out bc im sooo sensitive and i love complaining #and literally everyone else is just. repress repress repress. explode in anger. silent treatment. pretend it never happened. repeat. #alright enjoy your life ig 🙄 #lmao #rip to y'all but im releasing stress i feel better now #how am i ''''harming my own health''''' if i feel better @ the adamyans lmao

[thewritenerd]

Victor and Adam: NaNoWriMo Day 11

Adam just nodded. Chelsea got busy shuffling the cards before placing them face down on the floor. Nate soon came back with his own drink and a tray of snacks. ‘Okay I’ve got chocolate buttons, salt and vinegar crisps and pretzels.’ He set the tray down next to the cards and sat down so they were all sat in a circle. ‘Right it says youngest goes first so when’s everyone’s birthday?’ Chelsea looked around. Adam shook his head. ‘Doesn’t matter. I’m definitely the youngest.’ ‘How old are you actually?’ Nate asked. ‘I mean chronologically.’ ‘I’m two.’ Adam replied. ‘My birthday was in January.’ ‘What!’ Chelsea cried. ‘You mean we missed it.’ Adam shrugged. ‘It was on the 1st before I’d met either of you.’ ‘Well next year we are definitely doing something to celebrate.’ Adam smiled at ver. It was nice to think they could still be friends in a year. It seemed like such a long time to Adam. Then again a year was nearly half his life. The game Chelsea had picked turned out to be a very silly one. Chelsea did well at the more physical challenges. When Adam asked how it did that it explained it did gymnastics and ballet and swing dancing. Nate was also quite physical but did much better at the quick-thinking challenges. Adam wasn’t really good at any of them but he still enjoyed how silly the games was. When they’d finished they decided to put on the tv for a bit. Nate found a music channel that was doing a Top 50 Female Artists of the 60s special so they let that play in the background. Nate pulled his notebook out of his shirt pocket and started writing numbers down. 

‘What is that?’ Adam asked. Nate looked up. ‘What? Oh I’m writing down the Fibonacci sequence. I’ve been doing it since I was twelve. Gotten through quite a few notebooks already.’ ‘Weirdo!’ Chelsea teased. ‘Says the one with a room full of dead things.’ Nate scoffed. Chelsea stuck ver tongue out at Nate. ‘I’m sorry but why do you have Dead Things in your room?’ Adam asked trying not to look at ver with disgust. Chelsea just laughed. ‘I like to do taxidermy. It’s where you take a dead animal and stuff it so it looks like it did when it was alive.’ ‘Well except for those creepy glass eyes.’ Nate added. ‘Yeah like Mr Welter.’ Chelsea laughed pulling ver eyelids open and bugging it’s eyes almost out of ver sockets. This made Adam laugh louder than he meant to and it took him longer than it should to stop. ‘Wow I don’t think I’ve ever heard you laugh before.’ Nate said. ‘You laugh like my grandad.’ Chelsea added. ‘Well when he was alive at least.’ Adam shook his head trying to catch his breath. ‘Just give me a minuet.’ He gasped.

***

The three of them ended up loosing track of time and didn’t realise how long they’d been sat there when Nate’s mums came home with his little siblings. ‘Oh hello there.’ One of them said. She was the one with a shaved head, she also wore so much jewellery Adam wondered how she could move. ‘Are you two staying for dinner then?’ the second one asked as she helped Liam take his coat off. She still wore here hair in dreads but instead of hanging down like the photo they were now piled on top of her head. ‘We lost track of time.’ Adam explained feeling a little embarrassed. ‘Well would you like to stay?’ asked the first. ‘We always make too much anyway.’ ‘You mean you always make too much.’ Her wife teased. ‘I’ll stay.’ Chelsea said grinning. ‘I’ll have to check, but I think it should be okay.’ Adam replied. ‘Wonderful. Oh and can call me Yonah,’ said the lady with the dreads. ‘And I’m Jeong-Hui.’ Said her wife. ‘I’m Adam.’ Adam said. Jeong-Hui left to start preparing dinner while Yonah started pulling out colouring books and pens for the younger ones. Liam and Marie got started straight away but Ararat just sat there staring at Adam. ‘What’s wrong with your skin?’ he asked. Adam frowned. ‘There’s nothing wrong with it.’ ‘It’s all different colours.’ Ararat argued. ‘It’s from different places.’ Ararat seemed satisfied with that answer. ‘Why are you so big?’ Marie asked. ‘I was just made this way.’ ‘Now you two I love your curiosity but let’s not make our guest uncomfortable.’ Yonah gently scolded. ‘Okay mum.’ They both replied. Liam just stayed focused on his colouring. He didn’t look up until he’d finished colouring in the dragon. Adam watched as he reached out to tap Marie before holding out his hand palm up and rubbed two fingers on his wrist. ‘I’m using it.’ Marie said. ‘Marie. Use your hands.’ Yonah reminded her. Marie looked thoughtful before holding out her hands in fists with her thumbs pointing towards each other. She then moved one arm out before lowering it. ‘That’s good. Liam’s deaf so we use sign language to communicate.’ She explained to Adam. ‘Like Nate?’ ‘Kind of.’ Nate replied. ‘But I can hear with hearing aids. Though not as well as someone who doesn’t wear them. But Liam can’t hear anything even with hearing aids. Well except for very low-pitched sounds.’ ‘We started learning sign language after we’d adopted Nate.’ Yonah explained. ‘So when we went to see about adopting Marie and someone mentioned his condition we decided to make him part of our family too.’ She reached out and stroked the back of his head. ‘Originally we’d never planned on taking in a baby. Toddlers were the youngest we were ready to take on. But I’m glad we didn’t write that in stone.’ She then turned to Adam. ‘So Adam tell me a bit about yourself. Nate says you’re very good at science.’ Adam nodded. ‘Yeah. And I like maths.’ She looked over to Nate who was now sitting in the armchair. ‘Well it’s good to see he’s found a friend that shares that interest.’ Nate rolled his eyes but was grinning as he did so. Yonah raised an eyebrow but said nothing. ‘So what else do you like. Outside of school.’ Adam thought for a moment. ‘I like frogs. And I like watching videos. I’ve started reading poetry. Oh and I like inventing.’ ‘What do you invent?’ Chelsea asked. ‘Mainly things to help around the house. I like taking apart old things like clocks and making them into something new.’ ‘Well that sounds wonderful. Maybe you could invent me a way to get this lot out of bed on a school day.’ ‘Or maybe something to get you into bed when you get stuck into a project.’ Jeong-Hui teased from the doorway. ‘Dinner’s ready,’ she added. Yonah sent Nate upstairs to fetch Sascha as Marie and showed Chelsea and Adam to the dinning room, even though Chelsea had been round Nate’s for dinner many times. ‘It’s Caldillo de congrio.’ Jeong-Hui said as she began to place dishes of food on the table. ‘We like to keep the kids connected to their cultures and heritage. And food is one way to do that so the meals you get here tend to be very different to what you probably eat at home.’ ‘And where is this from?’ Adam asked. ‘Chile.’ Nate replied. ‘I’m half Chilian half Iraqi.’ ‘I’m Armenian.’ Ararat announced. ‘Marie’s black and Puerto Rican, and a little white. Sascha’s grandma was German and Liam’s Mongolian.’ ‘That’s right. Jeong-Hui praised. What about mum and me?’ Ararat looked thoughtful. ‘Grandma Moon was from Jamaica. And Grandpa Moon was from Korea. And Grandma and Grandpa Medina are black.’ ‘Grandpa Medina’s also Jewish.’ Marie pipped up. ‘Well well done both of you for remembering all that.’ Jeong-Hui praised. The rest of the dinner conversation was pretty much taken over by Marie and Ararat who wanted to tell everyone about their party. Both thought they could do a better job at telling stories than the other which lead to a lot of one talking over the other. It was louder than he was used to but Adam found he didn’t mind. In fact he liked it. It was nice to not feel like he had to fill the silence with awkward small talk that half the time wouldn’t get a response. After the meal, which he later learnt was Conger eel soup, Chelsea announced ve couldn’t stay as ver foster parents didn’t like ver staying out after dark even if ve was just round a friends. Yonah insisted ve take home some Brazo de reina to share with the other foster kids before ve left. After ve was gone Adam admitted he’d better message Igor to come pick him up but it may take him a few minuets to get there.’ ‘Well you’ll have a slice and some tea with us while you wait though?’ Seong-Hui asked. Adam said he would. In fact Igor didn’t take as long as Adam had thought he would. He ended up having a cup of tea himself, he turned down the Brazo de reina as he wasn’t one for sweet things. The little ones had been sent upstairs to get ready for bed, with Yonah keeping an eye on them so they didn’t get themselves worked up. ‘So is Igor really your name?’ Sascha asked. Igor nodded. ‘It’s my middle name. My first name’s Ignatius.’ ‘What’s your last name? Irvin?’ ‘Actually it’s Ivers.’ ‘You’re kidding. Ignatius Igor Ivers? So why go by your middle name?’ ‘Ignatius was my father’s name.’ he took a long drink. ‘He was a bastard.’ He added. Sascha laughed. ‘Same.’ Once they’d finished their drinks Igor announced they’d better get going. ‘Thank you so much for the tea Mrs Medina. Oh and tell your wife she should be expecting a call soon. I’ve seen her work and I must say I was very impressed. Say thank you Adam.’ ‘Thank you for letting me visit.’ He said. ‘Oh any time.’ ‘Bye Adam.’ Nate called waving. ‘Bye Nate.’ Adam waved back. Once in the car he turned to Igor. ‘So why are you going to call Yonah?’ he asked as they drove away. ‘Yonah Medina runs a company that does interior decorating for private residences. I was telling her wife about how certain parts of the castle could do with a touch up and how I was thinking we should get someone professional in to do it.’

#long post #writing #writblr #nanowrimo #victor and adam #read more

[itsfinancethings]

New world news from Time: ‘This Is Our Last Chance.’ A Photographer Captures the Energy for Change in Beirut After the Explosion

For the last three decades, the most reliable feature of Lebanon’s government has been its relentless decline.

Here was a country so brazenly corrupt the World Bank abandoned its usual diplomatic language in 2015, declaring the country “increasingly governed by bribery and nepotism practices, failing to deliver basic human services.” Among ordinary people, the lived reality of Lebanese politics produced a gall that rose like the stench of the garbage that has accumulated on the capital’s streets because officials cannot figure out where to put it. In October, the announcement of higher taxes triggered gigantic daily protests across the country. But they have not yet led to any substantial change.

Myriam Boulos for TIMERiad Hussein Al Hussein and his wife Fatima Al Abid in the Mar Mikhael neighborhood of Beirut on Aug. 7. He was buying vegetables there three days earlier when he heard a small explosion. He asked the seller whether he thought it was a shell or a bomb, and where it had landed. “Our discussion lasted approximately one minute and was interrupted by another sound of explosion, one way louder,” he recalls. “I shouted and said we needed to hurry inside the shop, and that is when I was hit by the glass.” He later went back to the building where he was injured to assist with cleaning up. “I wanted to help like I had been helped,” he said. “I wanted to pay it forward.”

Myriam BoulosA volunteer named Ahmad, who works with a Palestinian organization helping victims, prays amid rubble in Beirut on Aug. 5.

Myriam Boulos for TIMEKevin Obeid cuts Jad Estephan’s hair in the Mar Mikhael area of Beirut on Aug. 7, three days after the deadly port explosion. “Let us hope that this catastrophe doesn’t destroy us even further,” says Estephan, who lost his eye at the beginning of the revolution last year, “but rather gives us a much needed strength.” Obeid says he went to Mar Mikhael that day for two reasons: “First, to help the people that lost their houses. As my family and myself have not been directly affected by the explosion, I consider it natural to help those that were affected. It is the least I can do. The second reason was that I wanted to use my skills to help people around me. I wanted to use my skills to fix them.”

The question now is whether the catastrophic explosion of Aug. 4, which wiped away more than 220 lives and the homes of 300,000 people in Beirut, will ultimately take down Lebanon’s unique political system. The country’s constitution — which guarantees government positions to 18 separate religious sects — was intended to balance the interests and needs of a diverse, cosmopolitan nation. In reality, it provides semi-permanent employment for self-dealing elites in political parties that look after themselves, rather than a greater good.

Which is how 2,750 metric tons of ammonium nitrate languished in a port warehouse in the center of a city of 2.4 million people since 2013.

Myriam Boulos for TIMEBranches rest on a sedan. The blast, estimated at one tenth the size of the atomic explosion at Hiroshima, sent a wave of destruction six miles across a city already reeling from shortages of food, water and electricity.

Myriam Boulos for TIME“I felt like I went to hell for seven hours and then I came out of it,” recalls Andrea, a drag performer in Beirut who was injured in the port explosion. “I didn’t know what to think. Did I lose my house? Did I lose my life? Did I lose my beautiful city? It was a war zone.” Since then, Andrea, whose home sustained significant damage, has helped with a relief fund that offers shelter, food and first aid to members of the city’s LGBTQ community who were impacted by the disaster. “If we didn’t have our rights before,” he adds, referring to the fact that same-sex relations in Lebanon can be punishable by up to one year in prison, “now what we have left is very little.”

“We have been living next to an atomic bomb for six years. We stroll around, we walk by it, but we know nothing about it,” says resident Jad Estephan, of what produced one of the largest man-made (non-nuclear) explosions in global history. “How can the people in charge be this conscienceless?”

For a week after the blast, photographer Myriam Boulos moved through the wreckage of her native city, documenting an aftermath nearly as extraordinary as the explosion: Soldiers and police stood idle while ordinary people bent to the task of clearing debris. (“They carry guns,” says Boulos. “They don’t help with anything.”) As she photographed, she also asked questions. “It’s important that we tell our own stories,” she says. “It’s so important to listen to people, because at the end of the day the country is people.”

Myriam Boulos for TIMEAngelique Sabounjian and Cherif Kanaan on Aug. 10. Six days earlier, she was hit in the face with a piece of glass as the blast wave tore through the coffee shop where she was working in Beirut’s Gemmayze neighborhood. Sabounjian walked to the “completely demolished” St. George Hospital, where she would meet Kanaan. She was in “bad shape,” he recalls. “I decided to stick with her and introduced myself.” At one point, with her phone receiving so many calls, “she gave me the password so I could manage the calls from her family.” As Sabounjian tells it, “the experience I lived until Cherif found me was a nightmare.” He stayed by her side, and worked to find her an ambulance, until she received treatment at the Hôtel-Dieu de France hospital. “When I was confident that she was in good hands,” Kanaan remembers, “I wished Angelique a fast recovery and left the room.”

Myriam Boulos for TIMECDs are scattered on the floor of music producer Jana Saleh’s apartment, which was heavily damaged by the port explosion and blast wave. “I Google-mapped the distance between the blast and my home. It’s approximately two kilometers (1.24 mi.). We managed to hide in the glassless bathroom right on time and survived it,” says Saleh. “The concept is a thing of the 80s, during the civil war. The kids and the valuables were hidden in the bathroom. My brother and I spent a lot of time in it. On Aug. 4, I dragged my girlfriend to it. She’s the valuable in this story.”

Myriam Boulos for TIMEJoseph Sfeir, 88, a journalist for six decades, was born in this house in the Mar Mikhael area of Beirut. He lived through Lebanon’s 15-year civil war there, too. When the massive explosion occurred, Sfeir recalls, his reflex was to save his grandchildren—the reasons he came back years ago from France. They were with him in the house that day, but were not injured. His wife, who was on the second floor when the blast shook the city, was wounded. Sfeir is pictured with his sister, Mona.

Citizens complain about their government in every country, but few have better cause than the Lebanese. In a country that made its national symbol a tree, “the Lebanese people had to put out fires that were devastating our forests because our government was unable to do its job,” Nour Saliba noted, recalling a series of forest fires last October. It was the month daily demonstrations erupted in the capital. Protesters demanded an end to corruption and a new constitution.

The pandemic was still months away, but misrule had already sent the country’s economy into free fall, and almost half the 6.8 million residents (including 1.5 million Syrian refugees) lived in poverty. After two weeks of protests in October, Prime Minister Saad Hariri resigned. His replacement lasted mere months, stepping down on Aug. 10 after the protests, which had dwindled during the pandemic, resumed with a seething new anger. “The explosion, it cannot not define us, in a way,” says Boulos. “Of course it’s a turning point.”

Myriam Boulos for TIMESmoke billows from a tear gas canister during an antigovernment demonstration in Beirut on Aug. 8, four days after the blast.

Myriam Boulos for TIMEPeople gather on balconies during the demonstration. Protesters say negligence and corruption across Lebanon’s political system contributed to the disaster.

Myriam Boulos for TIMEA young protester near Beirut’s Martyrs’ Square during the Aug. 8 demonstration.

Riad Hussein Al Hussein was buying vegetables in the city’s Mar Mikhael neighborhood when he was knocked to the ground by the blast wave. He noticed he was bleeding from his head. Someone came to help him. “He used a cotton compress and pressed on my wounds for what seemed like a long time. He said that I had to endure the pain. And I endured.” That lasted about 20 minutes. “I really thought I was dying. I held my savior’s hand while he was helping me and I asked him to say my goodbyes to my family.”

Nothing binds people to one another like a trauma endured together. The explosion devastated three neighborhoods — a poor district east of the port; an enclave of Armenian Christians; and a gentrifying zone of older residents and young, artsy people. But with a damage radius of six miles, the entire city came apart. And then, came together.

Cherif Kanaan told Boulos he was at home when he heard the explosion. “My mum, my brother and I ran towards each other very scared. A few seconds later the whole building started shaking like crazy and the massive blast hit us,” he says. “The look in their eyes will forever haunt me. We really thought we were gonna die.” He left the apartment and sprinted first to the home of his uncle, where everyone was okay. From there, he ran from hospital to hospital, looking for people to help.

Myriam Boulos for TIMESome protesters on Aug. 8 reportedly threw stones and debris at officers or jumped over barricades that had closed off access to parliament, while others entered government ministries. Officers responded with heavy volleys of tear gas and rubber bullets.

Myriam Boulos for TIMEA group of women inside a van avoid thick clouds of tear gas in Beirut on Aug. 8.

Myriam Boulos for TIMEA man who was wounded during a demonstration on Aug. 11. At protests since the blast, researchers with Human Rights Watch have observed birdshot pellets being fired “indiscriminately” at protesters by security forces. After attacks on members of the press at various demonstrations, the Committee to Protect Journalists urged Lebanese authorities to investigate and hold accountable those found to be responsible. On Aug. 13, in a move that concerned rights groups, the parliament approved a state of emergency in Beirut that grants sweeping powers to the military as popular criticism mounts.

He found them everywhere. He held a compress to a wounded nurse outside a destroyed hospital, then cut his own hand lifting a metal pole out of the road. He helped an old man struggling with a bandage, and took off his shirt for a woman carrying two babies from a destroyed hospital. Another passerby gave his shirt for a third baby. Back at the ruined hospital, he spotted a woman with a terrible wound on her face. Her name was Angelique. “I couldn’t quite get her family name at first because of her numb lips,” he says.

Kanaan took her phone, reassuring relatives who were calling constantly. In the mayhem, an ambulance appeared. He bundled Angelique into a scene that would stay with him: On a stretcher was a young girl named Alexandra, struggling to breathe, “her grandpa at the back, a lady doctor next to him, insufflating Alexandra, her dad with a broken left cheekbone, Angelique next to him, myself, a wounded old lady in front of me, a wounded old man next to her behind the driver and a rescuer, I believe,” Kanaan says. In the end, Alexandra passed away.

Myriam Boulos for TIMEHatem Imam and Maya Moumne of Studio Safar, a design and communications agency, photographed on Aug. 10. The explosion “effectively eradicated any semblance of normalcy, and with it any remnant of decency,” the pair said. “The obscenity of the negligence of a state that knowingly stores 2,750 tons of highly explosive materials in its capital’s port is only multiplied by this state’s sickening lack of recourse in the aftermath.”

Myriam Boulos for TIMEA cactus rests on broken glass. Cleanup efforts have been left to volunteers, with authorities all but invisible.

It was six days after the blast that Prime Minister Hassan Diab resigned, saying he wanted to stand with the people “and fight the battle for change alongside them.” The next day, one week to the minute after the explosion, citizens gathered in the wreckage of their capital At 6:08 p.m., what moved through the air was not a blast wave but the Muslim call to prayer, and the peal of church bells.

“Let us hope that this catastrophe doesn’t destroy us even further but rather gives us a much needed strength,” says Estephan. “Because this is our last chance. We must change today, or never.”

—With reporting by Myriam Boulos/Beirut and Madeline Roache/London

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#IFTTT #Blogger

[xiyade]

I'd give anything to stop hearing news about the kids dying

#I will live to see azerbaijan disappear #just saw the last thing one of the kids said to his mum before joining the army #3 dead in one night #we had more people die because of azeris than corona #so fucking tired #Armenia #being Armenian living through 2020-2021 should come with free therapy and coffins for some

[yelenataylor]

10.6.2016 - Within/Without

Within this project I have worked to create a realised sculptural art piece to be shown at the end of year exhibition; alongside a supporting body of work of documentation, ideas, development, and experimentation.

The original aims of the project were to explore my emotions towards my heritage. I realised these feelings were heavily informed by my conceptions of family. A feeling of inclusion and yet alienation.

“I was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life.” ― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

I aimed to conclude this investigation with a 3D piece, creating various samples on the journey.

This project has not gone as intended. I changed my initial line of enquiry within the first week. I first planned to explore the human anatomy, but this idea gave way to a personal exploration of my culture. In a way I have reached a full circle. My explorations of Armenia only brought me back to maternal imagery, that of the body and reproductive system. I also had a lot of trouble with the materials I experimented with. My original intention came from a reading of the essay ‘Doodling in the Margins of Eva Hesse’s Histories’ by Vanessa Corby. The author writes of Hesse’s complicated relationship to her Jewish ancestry. Her distance and rejection of her Jewishness, and yet of how art critics would continuously draw connections to her work and her heritage. Only once did Eva Hesse ever publicly speak of her heritage, she referred to the work of Carl Andre, ‘Equivalent VIII’ to be precise. She said it made her uneasy, made her think of the Holocaust. Reading that resonated with me. It was Easter and my house was filled with egg imagery, my mum and tata (grandmother) taking part in Armenian Christian traditions, hard boiling eggs in order to ‘battle’ them. I often feel separate from them and watching them crack these eggs, a potential life as part of a family tradition made me think of fragility, family, life and death. I went to the Tate Modern that week and viewed the work of Gulsun Karamustafa, ‘Memory of a Square’ (2005). The video piece played two clips simultaneously, one of Turkish family life and another of a fascist demonstration in Turkey. It made me think of the duality humans carry within. The capability of creating comfort and warmth and the capacity for hate and violence.  I thought to use eggs as a metaphor for family tradition and food sustenance, but also as a reminder of the commodification of life. I wanted to present eggs in a way that would be referential to Carl Andre, and thought to put them into cubes (geometric shapes as a reference to minimalism). This brought many issues. I first thought to freeze them, but maintaining a constant temperature within the studio would be impossible within the time given. I tried pickling eggs as a way of preservation, but that left me with soft raw eggs, viable to bursting. I tried to seal eggs in resin, but the liquid was too corrosive and cooked the eggs before my eyes. Due to this I was left with little time to create my final pieces, as each method I tried would fail. I have eventually settled on ditching raw egg due to health and safety reasons and hard boiling eggs, and sealing them in gelatine, much like a 1950’s aspic. I also tried to work using cured meats as a material for sculpting. Again trying to make a piece that drew from Armenia’s history of genocide and family life; the meat represents life being reduced to a commodity to be appropriated by the owner, it could be argued that means of sustaining has been built (bowls) at the expense of another’s life, and the emptiness represents the hollowness of their profit/ the meaninglessness of their sacrifice/ having nothing left to eat. I was really enthused by these bowls, however meat does not have lasting power as an art material and the pieces began to degrade and become a health hazard. My resolution to all of these failures was to throw myself into my large sculptural piece. I began working with slabs of latex sewing them to an egg/womb/teste shaped form to create a visceral, fleshy work. However, due to cost of latex I ran into a wall again. I resorted to using nylon in my work, adding a soft, comfortable aspect to the piece. I wanted the piece to be beautiful and repulsive all at once, so perhaps this was for the best. I wanted the piece to be ‘life’ a variety of aspects all at once. Essential, practical, yet oddly alluring.

This project has helped me to gain knowledge of my own culture. I have spent the time to research the history and traditions of Armenia. It has informed the way I view animal produce.

I have learnt how to use a wide range of new materials throughout this project, from paper pulp to latex, to resin to food. I have had my first hand at creating a large-scale piece, something that will aid me in my future practice.

I have identified a weakness in myself throughout this project in that I can be very dismissive of my own work and practice. If I feel something is not working as I think it should I very often give up, I have learnt in the future that mistakes are integral to the creative process.

Overall, I don’t feel this project has been successful. I am unhappy with the amount of work I have created (meagre). I am unsatisfied with my final piece. I am even unfulfilled by this essay. I feel as though I am not explaining myself succinctly. Yes, I have achieved the original aims of the project, but not to a standard that I am comfortable with.

I want to develop this project in the future. I have finally found a line of enquiry that is personal to me. Themes of maternal relationships, embryonic forms, conception, life, all things that inspire me. I could see myself creating work on this topic for the rest of my life.

#writing #2016 #chesterfield college

[lilbluestem]

YIMWN: The Caitlin Playlist

Today’s music feature iiiiis: Caitlin!!

> Caitlin Knowles [Eyes Wide Open] 

This is another character who might need an explanation or refresher course (because I never talk about my idiot children... I’m trying to fix that!! :<). Caitlin is a sea witch who didn’t grow up a sea witch, so she actually has a human identity on land (Northern Ireland). And does not belong in the sea life, despite her oceanic familiar. She struggles to figure out where she’s supposed to belong, and she doesn’t realize she’s totally out of her depth (lol) trying to shoehorn herself into her witch community until the “sea life” (lol actually NEITH) takes (KILLS) her mum. :c

Anyway, she forcibly befriends Josh when he’s trying to hide from sea witches on fucking boats (brilliant plan, you dumb), and ends up freeloading with the Icelanders for a while (UNBEKNOWNST TO JOSH, who is later horrified to learn she’s been LIVING WITH HIS FAMILY the whole time wtf???). She loves the Icelanders though. They’re just the blend of real world and magic that her little witchy heart needs at the time.

I don’t even know where I was going with this background hahaaaa I can’t tell you her whole life. Well anyway she’s deeply involved with Josh’s bullshit: drags him back to Iceland, accidentally puts him in Neith’s crosshairs, awkwardly gets involved with the people trying to kill him, and totally promises she’s not an enemy spy, Josh, really. :< ??

WAIT ISN’T THIS A MUSIC POST? UM.

Features:

Guitars - lots of tinkly guitars

Distortion -  Electrical distortions, bending pitch, and the underwatery distortions like in Daughter’s music.

ATHEIST ANTHEMS. Caitlin’s story has a lot to do with religion. It’s not a religion she grew up in or believes, at all, but it has a huge impact on her life. She has a hard time at first, when everything about the sea life is new and magical and exciting, deciphering whether peeps are talking metaphors, folktales, or shit they actually believe, like, literally, which gets her into some trouble.

The Story Beats:

Caitlin’s playlist isn’t a terribly rigid storyline like the Villainverse one from yesterday. But there are some beats!

1) Eyes Wide Open by Gotye - Caitlin’s whole plotline only happens because she walks right off the plank into the sea life. She ignores warnings to boldly seek adventures, and plunges into danger with her eyes wide open.

5) Something Dark Is Coming by Bear McCreary - You wanna guess what that something is???? c:< The Armenian flute (Duduk) in this piece also rears its head in Neith’s playlist.

6) Death With Dignity by Sufjan Stevens - Her mum. :c It’s a quiet song. Her processing is quiet.

7) The Architect by Moddi - This atheistic song is full of lovely bendy distortions and I fucking love it. Caitlin didn’t mean to get in so deep, and now she’s noping the fuck out “to build [her] world alone,” without the imposing sea life. (Also, Moddi conveniently reminds us of JOSH, which turns out to be super appropriate since Caitlin is headed to Iceland!)

8) The Razor’s Edge by Digital Daggers - I totally SKIP the years she lives in Iceland in this playlist, but I also skip the years Josh is being a superhero in HIS playlist, which is roughly equivalent, so. Eh. c: This is Caitlin getting dragged back into The Bullshit™ with Josh, and the musical style shift that happens here totally corresponds to the electronic musical shift in Neith’s Playlist too.

11) Don’t Just Say You Love Me, Show Me by Egil Olsen - This is an Ashleigh/Caitlin song. c: The next one, Neptune, is too. 

13) Should Have Known Better by Sufjan Stevens - A moment of reflection and discouragement, but it doesn’t last long! She can’t change anything that’s happened, but accepting the past doesn’t mean she’s submitting to the future. Move on, pick up, and “Don’t back down!”

That’s basically Caitlin’s playlist! She has a lot of agency in what happens and ends up proactively trying to fix the big problems in her universe (unlike *ahem* freaking Josh, who’d rather be an isolated sheep farmer in a town of 30 people and has to be whacked over the head with scary things to realize he should do something. He did not ask for any excitement. ;__; He’s not cut out for this protagonist nonsense--who did this to him?????). 

ANYWAY, Caitlin’s playlist ends on a very energizing note because of this. The last 3 songs are important ones, but don’t need much explanation: For the sake of the world, this delusion has gotta go! TIME TO GO TO WAAAR!!

#yimwn #youreinmyworldsnow #caitlin #caitlin knowles #joshula #yimwn playlist